Why and were
by A.A. Pessimal
Summary: Werewolves have had it their own way for too long. They have ceased, for instance, to be able to consider that where there's a will, there's a were-animal. Until the new diplomats arrive from Howondaland...
1. Animal Magic

_**Whys and were-fores c1**_

_**Prologue:-**_

The two candidates stood in the dark humid night, naked, but still trying to suppress shivers in the hot jungle dark. Above them in the clearing, stars glimmered brightly in a night with only a half-moon. Normally there was continual noise and sound from the enveloping tropical jungle. On this night there was nothing, save the throbbing of the drums and the occasional ritual chant.

Torn between fear and a sensation this was all going to be a disappointing waste of time, N'kima looked at his friend N'juri and tried to share a reassuring smile. N'juri merely remained, staring out into the dark as if he was already looking into the otherworld for what he could see there.

N'kima tried to make himself a stern black statue, like the other four young men and women out there undergoing the Initiation, aware that out there, the senile and half-crazed Witch-Finder was dancing and capering around the magic circle. He heard the tethered goat, the sacrifice for the night, braying with fear.

_Brothers! They come! They come! Sisters! They arrive! They are here! _

A high-pitched ululation of welcome rose from the Society members, who were somewhere out there in the dark singing and dancing welcome to their brothers and sisters from the deep jungle.

The five neophytes tensed themselves, suppressing a desire to run as the five low sinuous shapes detached themselves from the jungle's edge. Three boys and two girls, naked and unarmed, faced their final test, one they had been trained to since earliest youth. Tonight was the culmination.

N'Kima shook away the fear, bit his lip, and concentrated. Behind him, the Witch-finder Un'Godeli shrieked

_Come, o sistern! Come forward, our brethren! Become as one with those who would be as you, yet remain human! Come forward!_

The drumming and the ululating grew louder. N'Kima found his head swimming, expansing, re-shaping. The shapes closing unhurriedly with them became four leopards. _And one of Them, N'kima marvelled. They are rarely absorbed. But taboo and bad fetishes accompany Them…_

The leopard welcomed him, rubbing up against his legs like one of the smaller feral cats that eked a suspicious living on the margins of the _kraal. _

_Was it purring? _

The creature reared up on its hind-legs, the feral stench of old meat coming from its mouth. It licked the boy's face with a rough but reassuring tongue.

_It is as was said. I am being welcomed. It has accepted me. _

Then the transition began. N'kima writhed in soundless pain, hearing a soundless roar, as the essences of man and beast met and merged. He heard distant screaming mingled with enraged roaring. Someone had been refused, or had sought to refuse. He would know later… _but which of us has __**It**__ chosen? I'm glad it was not me…._

He awoke with the dawn, one of four whole naked bodies lying in the grass. He was aware, in a groggy kind of way, of something having Changed. As the others awoke, groaning, he spat blood and shreds of raw flesh out of his mind. He looked over to an empty tether.

_I really hope that was goat, _he thought. He loked across to the girl N'mbl, who was bloodstained right down her body. She was obviously having similar thoughts. Then looked over to N'juri, who was…. Sitting, still and feral, with an unreadable smile on his face. N'juri was a son of a chief. Whilst N'kima counted him as a friend, he could be wary of the other's hauteur and bad temper. He would not be a man to cross or get on the bad side of.

And then he saw the flattened grass and what was left of the fifth, he whose nerve had broken, he who had tried to run at the last challenge.

And he looked down to the white, rounded, object lying broken at N'juri's feet and he _knew,_ for certain, who had accepted and been accepted by It, the creature of taboo and grim fetish. Now he knew he and the two sisters had only eaten goat that night. N'juri had been selected by the gods for richer meat.

Poor N'Stedi.

But then, he'd never really wanted to join the Leopard Society.

_**Ankh-Morpork, ten years later. **_

The trainee Watchmen and women in the yard of the Lemonade Factory were allowed a few minutes break from the incessant training. They had been working in what the Watch called "Toytown", a mocked-up set of Ankh-Morpork streets and houses built into the big warehouse at Vimes' expense, so that they could safely learn some of the hazards of patrolling in the City's meaner districts. **(1) **Semi-employed locals, after suitable vetting, were paid seventy-five pence a day to occupy the buildings on training days and make life as inventively difficult for the trainee coppers as they could.**(2)** To the civvies pretending to be thieves, thugs, rioters, the occasional innocent civilian, et c, it was money well and enjoyably earnt. Out-of-work actors were also employed to play Assassins, Thieves, Seamstresses, and other occupational members that the Guild could not normally touch.

This afternoon, the drill had been one of containing a rioting Troll, in the absence of any Troll or Golem members of the Watch. This involved getting up on a higher level and dropping a weighted net over the enraged silicoid. But one trainee Special had distinguished herself by leaping for a protruding flagstaff over a second-floor window, swinging her weight right round it as if she were a champion gymnast, and kicking it in the back of the neck with just the right amount of non-lethal force. The luckless stunt-troll had dropped like a stone, thus entailing the early end of the exercise.

In a confrontation exercise with an angry mob, the bear-like Norman Hutchisides, forgetting himself and reverting to type as team captain of Lobsneaks Wanderers, had waved a threatening finger once too often in the face of that particular Special and doused her in a little too much spittle.

There had been a dull crack, and she had stepped over his suddenly recumbent and surprised-looking body to ask if enyone _else_ fencied their luck.

The mock-riot had dissolved in some confusion, and Captain Carrot had intervened.

"Probationary Special Constable Smith-Rhodes, a word, please?" he had said, pleasantly.

Walking over to where Commander Vimes waited for them in the office, Carrot had said, pleasantly,

"How long have you been training with us as a Special now, miss Smith-Rhodes?"

"For two full weeks of the long school holiday, end et least one day a week since. It is very interesting!"

Carrot had nodded, and the rest of the trainees, with some relief, watched the two redheads disappear across the yard. Carrot was authority, after all, and the confident red-haired girl generally made them feel _nervous_.

"_What we doing standing here?" _Sergeant Detritus bellowed at them. _"You is tired? You want rest? We form up by threes and we do foot drill!"_

Groaning, the trainees formed up.

Meanwhile in the Twaddle Room, Commander Vimes lit his cigar and nodded at the new arrivals. Sergeant Angua stood by the wall silent and unheeded. Her left arm was bandaged.

"Ah, Probationary Special Constable Smith-Rhodes" he said, pleasantly. Johanna saluted. Her Assassin-grade armour and equipment stood out a mile from that of her Watch colleagues. Firstly it was high-quality – Assassins did not skimp on essentials; secondly, it was enamelled black, as opposed to the plain somewhat tarnished standard-issue; and it was so far unmarked. Johanna, who in her profession of Assassin was a well-trained lethal weapon in herself, believed that if the client was given a chance to make _any _sort of retaliatory blow that could dent your armour, then you were doing something wrong.

At first, she had been treated with suspicion by the other Watch members as the worst sort of hobby-bobby – a thrill-seeker with money – and then the story had circulated as to how she had become the first Licenced Assassin to be accepted in the Watch.

The tale of how she had saved Mr Vimes' life from wild lions during the Hide Park Safari had earned her some grudging admiration. Vimes had responded by offering her a position as a Special, together with the right to call him Mister. Sensing these two rights went together as a package, Johanna had accepted.**(3)** Besides, Lord Downey had called for Guild members to be more public-spirited when off-duty. He had frowned at one of his Assassins joining the Watch in any capacity, but when reminded of his own words, had reluctantly agreed, with a reminder as to where her loyalties should lie.

Joanna, meanwhile, had spurned neither the exercise, nor the chance to learn new skills that could round her off as an Assassin.

"Let me recap." Vimes said.

_Hup, two, three, MANY! Hup, two, three, MANY!_

"Between the ages of seventeen and twenty, you did National Service in the Howondalandian _Volkkskommando. _You served with a special forces' unit that saw action both in the desert and the jungle. During a long leave, you went rogue when you saw what raiding Zulus had done to a neighbour's farm. With a small hand-picked crew, you crossed the border, and performed what Assassins charmingly call _inhumation with extreme prejudice _on the Zulu chief responsible This involved a large barrel of Agatean Fireclay and a short fuse. This made you a national heroine, at least for a while, although you lost rank for going against standing orders. Your last job in state service was as part of the crew escorting the bullion ship _De Vliegende Howondalaandian …"_

Vimes stumbled over the foreign syllables. Johanna thought better of correcting him, but translated the name.

"The Flying Howondalandian, Mr Vimes."

"The bullion ship into Ankh-Morpork. Here, the Assassins' Guild made you a proposition. You were not looking forward to civilian status again, as after your unauthorised Zululand excursion, the Army had said it would not re-enlist you. My wife also suggested that you weren't looking forward to going back to Howondaland full stop, if all it had to offer was being somebody's wife and raising his children."

"Lady Sybil is very perceptive." Johanna said, in agreement. Vimes nodded.

"She is, isn't she? So being an adventurous and out-going young lady, you joined the Assassin's Guild. You've lived here ever since, and I'm forced to say you've been more of an asset than a blot on this city. When you saved my life last year, I really didn't have a choice, did I?"

Vimes took a draw on his cigar.

"Besides, you're the only one out of the whole damn' bunch who's come _anywhere near_ inhuming me, so I want somebody like you where I can see you. And I never penalise my Watchwomen for being _overenthusiastic_."

"Do you have any criticism of the wey I do the job?" she asked.

"Hell, no!" Vimes had said. "Coalface might wake up with a sore neck, and Hutchisides will probably put himself on the subs' bench if Lobsneaks are ever drawn to pay the Assassins' Guild, but I'm not penalising you for either. No, I'm forced to consider that routine street policing is possibly going to waste your not inconsiderable talents. I've got a job for you. Special police work. Interested?"

"Very!" said Johanna.

"Good. Brief her, Angua".

Angua von Überwald stepped forwards. Johanna's eyes were drawn to her bandages. They had worked together before and knew each other: while not close friends, each permitted the other the courtesy of respect for a talented, able, professional. Besides, both were in agreement that Ankh-Morpork could only be improved by having more professional women in what had previously been men-only jobs.

"Last night I ran into them again" Angua said, getting straight to the point. She lifted a bandaged arm. "It'll ease and heal. It does quickly, for werewolves. But I got out of a bit of a scrap only because they backed off and ran. Sally, my partner, arrived and I think they thought better of it. But she had to get me to a Watch-house quickly to get medical help, or we'd have followed."

She smiled, darkly.

"One I'd have beaten. Two, you carefully run away from. But three?"

"Three of whet, exectly?" Johanna asked.

"Leopards, Johanna. Leopards. From Howondaland."

Johanna breathed out, hard. An expert in animal handling, she assisted the Watch frequently on difficult cases. This was another good reason for Vimes to have signed her up as a special.

_Hup, two, three, MANY! Hup, two, three, MANY! Pick it up! _

"Is there any chance at all, Constable, that we missed any in the clear-up of Hide Park last summer? We've been getting these reports sporadically since last September. And the Klatchian ambassador had a favourite hunting dog ripped apart by large feral creatures just before Hogswatch." said Vimes.

"I found the poor thing" Angua said. "I could also smell large cat. I think they'd have fed on it, if they hadn't smelt a wolf nearby and been spooked by me."**(4)**

Johanna shook her head.

"No, I'm sure we got them ell. You yourself made the very sensible move to throw raw meat to the escaped large cats, to give them a reason to stey in the Perk end not to move out. We moved them to the City Zoo, end none escaped. These must be new errivals since."

"Some bugger importing the kittens because, well, they look cute, don't they, then letting them loose when they got too big for comfort" grated Vimes, who'd taken Young Sam to the new Zoo on several mutually enjoyable occasions. "When I find them, I'm throwing the book!"

"Perheps, Commender, Only perheps". Something had nudged a memory in Johanna, but she couldn't place it yet.

"Anyway, you and Angua are on this case. Patrol together as often as you can, your normal duties permitting. Get those bloody leopards!"

"Sir!"

* * *

Anthony N'Kima, special attaché at the Kwa'Zululand Embassy, looked up and saw the first glimpse of the moon.

_We will be running again soon. The flux is strong! _

He thought of N'Juri, who had accompanied him on this long exile by order of the Paramount Chief, and shuddered.

_It might be fun if it wasn't for him… attacking the policewoman, possibly the only one in the city capable of realising what we are..._

* * *

**(1) **The British Army built a similar mock village on Salisbury Plain so that new soldiers could learn all about the possible hazards of patrolling built-up areas in Northern Ireland. It was also used to teach the rudiments of house-to-house fighting in Central Europe, should World War Three ever have broken out in Germany. Toytown was back in the news lately after proposals to update it with typical Iraqui-Afghan buildings, including a mosque, for the current war. British Islamic groups protested against the inclusion of a mock-Mosque. Strange, but true.

**(2) **Also true. The British Army paid its "barracks rats", ie Army families and children from married quarters, to play rioting Northern Irelanders and not to hold back on bricks, bottles, invective, et c. The general attitude was that it was good training and good exercise for everybody.

**(3)** See my story _**The Urban Safari**_

**(4) **See my short story _Il se passait au nuit du Pere Porcher._


	2. Going to the Zoo

_**Whys and were-fores c2**_

The night, in the Shades, was darker than it would have been anywhere else over the city. While a half-moon was up there, it was obscured by cloud and a steady drizzle fell. Rough sleepers, beggars and unlicenced beggars tried to find what shelter they could, and in a back alley behind Monkey Street, beggar Augustus Yarrow was trying to sleep. He sensed, rather than heard, stealthy movement. A dustbin lid fell off with a resounding clang, and he heard angry words spoken in an unfamiliar language.

"I don't have any money!" he called, frightened. "I really don't! I'm a beggar! If I had money, I'd have paid for a spike in the warm!"**(1)**

As the animal shapes converged on him, Augustus Yarrow found himself begging, unheeded, for his life….

"What the Hell was that?" his shade asked, some minutes later. A terrifying vision of fangs, feral breath, roaring animals and hideous rending pain was mercifully fading.

I BELIEVE YOU WERE APPARENTLY ATTACKED BY LARGE FERAL CATS, said Death, sympathetically. An incurable ailurophile, Death watched them with some interest.

MAGNIFICENT CREATURES, AREN'T THEY? I UNDERSTAND CLEO-PHAT-RE, PHAROAHESS OF DJELIBEYBI, KEPT A BRACE AS PETS.

Yarrow, who really had no interest in watching his late body being devoured by at least one of the creatures, shrugged.

"Yeah, but I thought leopards had shorts. Spots, rather. That big bugger there din't have no spots. And it's the wrong colour."

THAT ONE IS A MELANISTIC FORM OF _PANTHERA PARDUS,_ THE COMMON HOWONDALANDIAN LEOPARD. IT HAS SPOTS, BUT YOU NEED TO LOOK CLOSELY FOR THEM. OPINION IS DIVIDED AS TO WHETHER _PANTHERA PANTHERA_ IS IN FACT A SEPARATE SPECIES. IT IS VERY RARE TO WITNESS THEM HUNTING TOGETHER.

"May I go now, please?" asked Yarrow, who really didn't need the natural history lecture.

AS YOU WISH. shrugged Death, who hadn't even got started on what else the leopards might be. He'd seen it in Howondaland quite a few times…

As they faded out, and as he leopards dragged the body away so as to feed better, two more shadowy figures detached themselves from a shadow further down the alley, turned a corner as inobtrusively as they could, and then ran for it.

"Millenium, hand and shrimp!" one of them wheezed. "I tole 'em! Buggrit if they can't clean out the fnords!"

"That was bloody scary!" said the second, from somewhat nearer ground level. "I mean, I've run with the bloody werewolves, right, and I've seen what _those_ buggers are like at close quarters. But if it weren't for 'im, right, we'd have bin catfood!"

Gaspode and Foul Ole Ron stumbled on, until they judged themselves safe. Well, as safe as anything could be in the Shades.

"Reckon I should tell the Watch?" Gaspode mused. "Pickin's have been poor on the streets lately. Carrot or Angua might pay for that information! Especially since there are those in this town as'll blame something like that on werewolves."

"Danglesplit on them damn fnords!" burbled Ron. Gaspode cocked an ear.

"You're right. The Watch'll find that soon enough. I reckon when the Times gets wind, they'll pay big dollar for information. Sit on it till then."

Behind them, N'juri looked up. He sniffed the air.

_Brothers, we were witnessed. There were others here. That will not do._

The unspoken "Deal with it!" hung in the air. Unhappily, but spared having to eat of this rank meat, N'Kima and N'mbl padded forward. In any case, etiquette demanded they hung back till the dominant male had eaten his fill.

_Dog. _She reported. _But not the dangerous were-dog. Small. Male. Uggh. And…_

She padded off, N'Kima following. And then Foul Ole Ron's Smell, which had lingered in the alley, struck to protect the Source. There are many perils in Ankh-Morpork for the unwary visitor from abroad.

She leapt into the air with all four feet, and ran whimpering the way she had come.

_Fool of a female! Do I have to do everything myself? _

N'Juri stalked haughtily forwards. N'Kima, who had caught a whiff, wondered if he should warn his leader, but smiled contentedly inside. Let him find out for himself.

N'Juri stopped dead. N'Kima envied him his self-control.

_Brother, sister, _he said, in an unsteadier voice, _I believe we should cease activities for tonight and make it back to the Den. It would be prudent. _

The three leopards turned and trotted off. N'kima passed the corpse of Yarrow with mixed feelings: he had never eaten human flesh before and had no wish to start now. But it smelt so _good_…

* * *

Commander Vimes sat in his office, trying to make sense of Angua's carefully compiled chronology of big cat sightings in the City.

The thing with Dibbler's bright idea about the Safari Park had been last June, hadn't it? If any animals had been lost or otherwise evaded the round-up, they'd have been sighted much sooner than September, wouldn't they? Ye gods, we all had to _eat_. And the Zoo was adamant it had lost no animals – the Smith-Rhodes girl had promised to double-check that, but he believed them. What with the Agateans having this superstition about the bodily parts of large animals being efficacious in their medicines, and willing to pay large amounts, no questions asked, for the bodies of large cats, putting adequate security in at the Zoo had not just been a matter of protecting the people from the animals. Vimes doubted any leopard escaping from the Zoo would last five minutes before re-appearing as a fur coat, matching gloves, and a shelf-full of preparations at Mr Hong's Auriental Doctor's.

Anyway, the Assassins had a fifty-one per cent controlling interest in the Zoo – and were milking a steady profit from it, rot them – and what with the Thieves' Guild subsidising a few cages, ie the chimpanzees, it was a no-go area for licenced or unlicenced thieves. Not unless they took the whole family at fifty pence per adult and twenty-five pence per child. And the permanent zookeeping staff were golems, who never slept and took pride in their job. There were also a handful each of trolls, dwarves, humans and relays of students from the Assassins' Guild School who were doing the girl's Natural History course. Students from the Thieves' Guild looked after the apes, especially the chimps, and the University had a handful of student wizards there who were studying for their unique zoology degrees, looking after the griffins and the wyverns and the other quasi-mythological beasts who had finally found a secure home after the fire at the College of Heralds a few years ago.

The only real trouble had been at the Petting Zoo, where Ankh-Morpork's street kids had needed close supervision to prevent them from petting too vigorously or, er, taking a few pets home afterwards, hidden under their coats. The old keeper who'd transferred over from the Palace Menagerie when it closed down, Mr Grinchlow, had not _quite_ understood the criteria for animals to be petted. Told, "oh you know, anything fluffy and furry, that sort of thing," he had imported a tank of tarantulas from the Animal Management Unit at the A.G. School, reasoning that those nice hairy spiders were just the deal. He'd added a few of those soft furry millipedes from the Ghatian jungle for good measure.

If Matron Igorina had not been on hand with the antidotes, there might have been a lot more trouble and a few fatalities.

Vimes shook his head. Twelve confirmed sightings since September, and another twenty or so arranged in varying degrees of probability and reliability of witness.

_Something happened in September, _he thought. _But what was it?_

He made a mental note to discuss it with André Loudweather, Detective-Inspector of the Cable Street Particulars.

And then Carrot came in with the Night Watch patrol reports.

"It doesn't look good, sir" he said, without preamble. "More sightings of the creatures last night. And this…

"He passed over a sealed folder.

"Cheery went out with an iconograph to do a scene-of-crime. She found… well, Nobby had run out of chalk. Too many bits."

Vimes forced himself to open the folder and grimaced.

"Get Miss Smith-Rhodes, would you? She must have seen things like this at home in Howondaland."

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes had taken her new puppies on walkies, up to the Zoo. Through her country's embassy, she had received a gift of two weaned puppies, courtesy of her uncle, the Ambassador.

It was not unknown for Assassins to own dogs and there was always a transient canine population at the Guild. As many Assassins came from the huntin' shootin' and fishin' squirearchy, the Guild was generally graced by hunting dogs, such as red setters, Hergenian wolfhounds, Klatchistanian hounds and other breeds combining grace, sinuousness, long hair and beauty. Lady T'Malia, the veteran teacher of Realpolitik and Diplomatic Expediency, kept lapdogs to which she was quietly devoted. Miss Pretty Butterfly, the Visiting Lecturer in Agatean Language and Culture**(2)**, had a pug-nosed chow dog.

Johanna's were somewhat different.

Also known as Van Rooien's Lion Dogs, Howondalandian Lion Dogs, and Khoikoi to the Kwa'Zulu, her two Rhodesian Ridgebacks shared a certain long sleek and hungry look with their Central Continent counterparts. But they were destined to grow so much larger, as befitted the purpose they were originally bred for, to tire and run to earth a full-grown male lion. Even as ten-week old puppies, they stood way above her knees. They would be waist-height to Johanna by the time they finished growing.

Latterly, her country bred them for other things. The Embassy in Ankh-Morpork had imported a pack of them for additional security, using them to patrol the Embassy grounds at night. Following the inevitable liaison between a bitch and a male, the surplus puppies had been given as gifts to those who would appreciate them.

Johanna was diligently training them out of one unfortunate trait that her people had bred into the dogs. She was making absolutely sure they were dissuaded from sitting up on their hind legs and growling whenever a black-skinned person passed by. To that intent, she had enlisted colleagues such as the Guild's genial Zulu chaplain, Clement Ineffabl, and graduate student Ruth N'Kweze, a former pupil and now friend, to resocialise the creatures whilst still puppies.

Ruth, now part of the amorphous pool of employees the School graded as classroom assistants, and therefore a dogsbody for any basic job going, had taken to her new role with pleasure. Thought of as one of the outstanding gradutes from her year, she was paying her way through a postgraduate course in Advanced Assassination and would eventually qualify with an unfortunately abbreviated M. Ass degree.

Her pupils, of all races, adored them and showered them with affection, which Johanna thought ideal to get them out of bad habits early.

She just wished they'd stop growling at Lord Downey and Mr Mericet. So far she hadn't been able to school them out of this.

One dark mahogany brown and the other a much paler colour, she had called them Kafee and Crème. They sat obediently beside her near the leopard enclosure, torn between looking warily but submissively at Angua von Überwald, and watching the leopards with tail-wagging excitement.

Angua reached down to scratch Crème behind her ear.

Together, they watched the leopards.

"Something's not right here." Johanna said.

"I can see. The hair on their backs seems to grow the wrong way round." said Angua. "It's hard to get used to."

"Thet's why they're called Ridgebacks. No, I mean the _leopards._ Ell these reports of feral leopards in the city. I hev never before heard of the creature hunting as a _peck_. Three or four of them, running together like a pride of lions? You only see thet in a mother teaching her cubs to hunt. But by the reports, these are a group of meture enimels roaming together and co-operating es a group. The leopard is a _solitary_ enimel thet hunts elone. Watch these creatures, here. We need the largest enclosures end no more than four or five cen shere the spece. If overcrowded, they will fight. It presented headaches when a female hed cubs, lest year. There must be fights, bettles for dominance, emong a group of meture creatures living wild in the City."

Angua, by nature a pack animal forced to live a solitary life, nodded thoughtfully. Her referent was wolf society. Johanna was describing something different, but a mirror-image of what was familiar. Idly, Angua noticed one of the leopards had approached to within twenty yards, and was sitting there, apparently grooming itself, but looking over at the two humans with a kind of interest. It reminded her of meeting new and unfamiliar werewolves when in the wolf-state: the appraisal each would give the other before identifying themselves.

_But no, _she thought. _We're the only weres on the Disc. They say there are were-bears up towards the Hub, but that's probably down to people who have fought berserker warriors and survived to tell some sort of story afterwards. They're just insane humans in bear skins who are playing at it. Or maybe it's a distorted account of those Lancre witches who can Borrow. OK, godsdamned vampires can turn into bats. But that's vampires. That's different. We're taught from puppyhood that we are privileged. We are the only ones. And I've yet to see different. _

But there was still something disconcerting about the way the creature seemed to be assessing her, weighing her up. She wondered if Johanna had noticed.

_It's probably just checking me out and wondering about what is not-human about me, _Angua concluded. _It's probably never encountered a werewolf before. _

Angua focused on distinguishing the particular smell and taste of Leopard in the air around her. When she was sure she had the smells of at least three of them fixed in her mind and could differentiate between them with her eyes closed, she nodded in satisfaction.

_Could I come back here as a wolf? No, it used to cause mass trauma in the Patrician's menagerie. And Grace Speaker wasn't too pleased when I patrolled near her pet shop down on Pelicool. _

Then the golem keeper Gevalt lumbered up to them.

"Miss Smith-Rhodes? Sergeant Von Uberwald? There Is An Urgent Clacks. You Are To Return To The Yard. There Has Been a Murder. By Leopards."

Johanna whistled the dogs to heel. Angua got to her feet. Unheeded, Elizabeth N'Kibli watched from the leopard enclosure. She had overheard their conversation. She know the White Howondalandian woman, as well as being the racial and tribal enemy, was many-times too clever. As soon as she could, she would have to say farewell to the little brothers and sisters here and return to warn N'Juri. A pity: the meat had been from legitimate prey animals, some sort of buffalo, and had been good and plentiful. And she could come into heat for that male who had been watching her… she would Change and escape at first dark.

* * *

**(1) **The Beggars' Guild subsidised rough-and-ready overnight accommodation for its members at a penny a night. This bought use of a blanket and a place in the warm. More money could rent a mattress and a basic meal. Whilst basic, this was infinitely more popular than the alternative, the hostels run by the Omnian Church Divine Legion of Salvation. There, a halfpenny or a farthing bought two hours of copious sermon, followed by a much less fulsome soup-and-bread dinner, and a hard sleeping roll for the night. Many people preferred sleeping rough.

The Omnian Salvation Army has yet to see a need to rethink its strategy.

**(2) **A graduate of the HungHung Guild of Ninjas, she also taught Ninjitsu Studies and advanced martial arts in the Guild's new donjon.


	3. Contradictions

_**Whys and "were"-fores c3**_

Sergeant Mauritz deKok was an elderly Konstabel from the Howondaland Watch. Coming up to retirement, he had been seconded to an undemanding post for two years, a chance to see the world outside the Homeland and to perform light undemanding duties as a security guard at the Embassy in Ankh-Morpork.

A dog handler by inclination, he enjoyed working with the Embassy's pack of Ridgebacks. An overweight and somewhat laid-back Konstabel, he lacked the energy to be really nasty and vindictive to the Embassy's put-upon black staff, and in any case the Ambassador had ordered that the dogs and the bleck servants be kept separate, insofar as was possible. These were dogs which had been trained to recognise that black people were fundamentally untrustworthy and dishonest and to respond appropriately, after all. And Ambassador van der Graaf had made it clear he did not want any regrettable misunderstandings or errors of judgement, such as the sort which might result if a guardsman were to let his dog off the leash, where it could see and chase down an otherwise blameless black. **(1) **_That_ sort of sport and _that_ sort of amusement will not happen in my embassy, Sergeant deKok. I get enough grief from Vimes and endure enough sarcastic remarks from Lord Vetinari as it is. You will ensure all your dog-handlers are aware of this. Thank you.

DeKok had shrugged. He had nothing against blecks, well, nothing much anyway, and he knew the sort of power a Ridgeback's jaws could exert. He wouldn't wish an end like that on… well, a bleck.

He liked the two in the morning patrols best of all. It got him out of the barracks – they weren't exactly over-crowded, but had never been built with privacy in mind. While it was true to say that Ankh-Morpork never slept, around Scoone Avenue at two a.m. it came closest. Here, it at least catnapped during the night. DeKok appreciated being able to live in one of the most upmarket streets in the city, albeit by proxy and because the Embassy was located here.

He allowed Rambou to pull on his lead. Despite building a discreet barracks for the guard, a segregated residence block for the bleck workers (hidden discreetly at the rear lest their presence offend the neighbours) and the Springboek Club for expatriots, there was still a lot of garden and grounds to patrol.

Stewed guava and custard** (2)**for the dogs, who needed lots of exercise. Nice for him, who appreciated the night and the silence. Occasional flashes in the sky out turnwise indicated the Dwarf iron and steel foundries were working a night shift. If he listened hard enough, he could catch the thud of the drop-hammers at Stronginthearm's.

He walked on. _This patrol hands over shift at four, then I'm in luck and should get a bunny-chow at the barracks canteen. After that it's too late to sleep, so I may as well enjoy the quiet while I've got it. Sit up and read for an hour or two, then bunk down._

It was a funny thing, but this city made you start thinking about things, the sergeant reflected.

_Uh-oh. This stage of the route takes me near to the Ambassador's bedroom window. Mr van der Graaf says he feels reassured by the sound of the guard crunching on the gravel under his window at two in the morning , but sometimes you can't tell if the old goat's being sarcastic. And the baas-lady Frijda gets positively bleddy _**intense**_ if the dogs bark and her sleep's disturbed. _

"Quiet, boy!" he urged Rambou.

Then the dog stiffened and really pulled on the lead, almost pulling deKok over.

"What is it, boy? What do you smell?"

Acting on a dog-handler's fundamental instinct, he called

"_Wie's daar?" _Then he remembered he was in a foreign country where the natives were too lazy to learn proper Vondalaans.

"Who's there?" he corrected himself. He heard a rustling in the undergrowth, and unclipped the dog's leash.

"_Soek, _Rambou!" He ordered. The hunting dog sped away.

He heard a window open behind him. But by then he was following to where there was a commotion in the bushes by the fence. He heard Raimbou growling, then a hissing scream followed by a whimper, and glimpsed… something… hauling itself up over the perimeter fence and dropping into the neighbouring garden. And then he found Rambou, trembling, frightened and bleeding from a large bite. Although he noticed blood dripping from the dog's jaws.

As he bent over his dog, he thought_ This is wrong! Nothing should scare a ridgeback like this And that was a black leaping over the fence if ever I saw one. At least Rambou took a chunk out of his guava, by the look of it, but he's wounded… _

"_Wat gebeur?" _(What's happening?)

"You shouldn't be out here, sir, it's potentially dangerous."

DeKok was ringing his handbell, remembering his duty, turning out the guard.

"I don't see why not. It's my bleddy embassy!" said Pieter van der Graaf.

As more guardsmen turned out, half-dressed, but with swords, cudgels and halbards, the things that _mattered_, deKok directed them to search the gardens thoroughly.

"Pieter, this is all somewhat _intolerable_!"

It was the baas-lady, the Ambassador's wife. Dressing-gowned and stately, she objected to having her sleep interrupted.

The she saw the bloodied, panting, dog and the scale of the guard turn-out.

"Oh." She said, disconcerted, "something's happened, hasn't it."

"Yes" her husband said, curtly. "We had an intruder in the grounds. A dangerous one that was able to cause harm to one of our dogs. He escaped over there, into the Brindisian Embassy grounds next door. We are trying to alert them but by the time the macaronis have got their act together, he will be long gone."

In fact, the first of the Brindisian embassy guards had appeared, impeccably uniformed in their ridiculuous particolour harlequin costumes and silly ruffles, with the boat-shaped plumed helmets that were four hundred years out of date. Diplomacy was happening across the fence. Apparently there was a blood-trail on the Brindisian side, leading back to Scoone Avenue where it went cold, as if the perpetrator had had assistance from a vehicle. In fact, the gate guard reported seeing an unlit carriage parked just on the Chrononhotonthologos Street side of the road, but had not thought it noteworthy. Whoever it was, it had gone now.

Van der Graaf silently fumed. _My men just pull their boots on and grab a sword to answer an emergency. They don't sit around for half an hour brushing those silly Bersaglieri plumes and seeing their uniforms can pass a parade. _He felt an obscure pride in his guards. Then returned to important matters.

"Will the dog live?"

Konstabel Huik, the nearest thing they had to a vet, had been tending the injury.

A few stitches, sir. Nothing life-threatening has been damaged. But he is very frightened. No absconding keffir could have done this."

"Yet Sergeant deKok reports a black man climbing the fence" the Ambassador remarked. "And this is clearly a bite wound from a large animal. No, I'm not doubting what you saw, sergeant. Perhaps, as with you and the dog, it was a large animal with a handler. In which case it may still be here."

The ambassador considered.

"Take that poor creature to a place of safety, Konstabel. As for the rest of you, I have noted a fast and complete turn-out. I thank you. I want all dog teams out in the garden tonight. And a gate guard. Sergeant, write your report and I will give it to Commander Vimes in the morning. As he says, intrusions into the Embassy from Ankh-Morpork are his problem. Thank you, gentlemen. We will have a security conference in the morning. I intend to sleep. Frijda?"

And the Ambassador set off back to bed.

Johanna was up bright and early the next morning She had a long day ahead of her and wanted to make an early start. After brewing coffee and feeding two boisterous puppies, she settled down to routine Raven House administration, assisted by Ruth.

_It's so good to have a teaching assistant, _she thought, happily_. Especially one who lives in. That takes so much of the routine burden off me. _

"Nobody sick. All pupils present, Johanna!". Ruth reported, having been delegated to do the morning checks.

"Kiff. Nobody wenting to see me? Good, we cen get on with things!"

Young Maroon, the postboy, arrived with the times and the morning mail. He looked over at the two dogs with pleasure, and hovered by the desk.

"Enything I cen for for you, Maroon?" Johanna asked, pleasantly

"Er… the stamps, miss?"

"Of course!" she said, passing over a full envelope.

"Es en extra treat for you, when I wrote to my mother lest, I mentioned you are always good et your job end you collect stemps. She saved for you all her stemps and sent them to me. You may wish to write and thenk her."

"Thank you, miss!" Maroon said, delighted. Thanks to Johanna, who appreciated being first with the mail and the Times, he had a collection of Howondalandian stamps as good as any in Ankh-Morpork. Howondaland's stamps tended to be big, full-colour and showy, with series depicting the nation's landmarks, plants and wildlife. They made Ankh-Morpork's look drab and boring by comparison.

"And there's a message, miss. From your uncle. There was an incident at the Embassy last night and he needs your advice."

Johanna looked up, sharply

"He sent a messenger, miss. The note is in with the mail."

"Thenk you, Maroon. You may go."

Johanna read the note from her uncle first. It tersely described the intrusion on the Embassy grounds, the attack on the guard-dog, and his perplexity that what had been seen did not match the evidence. He would value her opinion as soon as she could make time.

Johanna sighed.

Ruth, could you cover my first cless this morning? It's routine text book stuff. Chepter Seven of the stenderd text. I'll be beck es soon es I cen. Thenks!"

She was first at the Embassy. Recognising her, the gate guard slammed to attention and admitted her. She acknowledged the salute with a touch to her hat.

Aunt Frijda, looking tired, welcomed her warmly.

"It was terrible, Johanna, terrible!" she proclaimed. "One minute deeply asleep, the next a riot begins under the bedroom window. Totally impossible to sleep again after, what with Captain Breytenbach putting additional guards under the window, and in the corridor outside our bedroom! And dogs barking in the garden all blessed night long."

Johanna nodded. Breytenbach might be a thug and an oaf, but he was also an experienced fighting soldier. Her aunt and uncle were in the right hands.

"May I see the injured dog, Aunt?" Johanna asked.

"Of course. Konstabel, please escort my niece to the kennels? Thank you so much!"

Johanna joined her uncle in concern for the stricken animal.

The dog whined and nuzzled her hand piteously. Johanna explored the wound site gently. It felt hot to the touch.

"This is no human bite." she said. "Nor was it done with a weapon. And you say DeKok swears blind he saw a _human_ climbing over the dividing fence?"

"A black-skinned human. Or perhaps a black-clad human."

"But this is an animal bite! I would affirm before the gods this was done by a large feral cat, most probably a leopard! Uncle, this doesn't make sense!"

"I know."

A guard coughed discreetly for attention.

"Sir, Stoneface Vimes and that Uberwaldean woman of his are at the gate, demanding admission."

The Ambassador frowned.

"They have no jurisdiction here. I'll meet them at the gate."

"No!" Johanna shouted. Her uncle looked at her in surprise.

"Uncle Piet, I have no wish to contradict you in public. But I believe it would be most helpful if Mr Vimes and Sergeant Angua, on this occasion, are allowed entry to make their investigation. Let me explain why. There has been a spate of incidences in this city of inexplicable attacks seemingly carried out by large feral cats. The Watch could well be helpful to you. I myself have been asked to join the investigation."

He thought for a moment, and nodded. "Bring them to this kennel. On my authority." he said. The guard saluted and raced of.

"I must perform another operation on this animal." Johanna said. "Franz, you did well But this poor dog was bitten, right into the abdomen, by a feral animal It will have had old food rotting in its teeth. I can feel the first signs of peritonitis and poisoning in this dog, and it will die a painful death if we do not seek to clean the wound even more thoroughly than you did last night, by candle-light. And even then he might die. He is Sergeant deKok's personal dog, is he not? Well, Franz, you and I must operate."

Konstabel Huik nodded, ready to assist.

Then Angua and Vimes bustled in, and the conversation switched from Vondalaans to Morporkian.

The newcomers were briefed on the night's incident.

"Oh, the bloody Brindisians!" Vimes said, with his usual diplomatic flair. " No idea of what matters except putting up a show. Every bloody war they've fought they've ended up surrendering. Want me to ask Vetinari if he can advise their Ambassador to buck his bloody ideas up? You know Benito next door, it's all _domani, signor, domani_, with him, and nothing gets done. I can see you've got a weak flank there!"** (3)**

"Well, at least the Doge gets the coaches to run on time." Pieter van der Graaf murmured. "That, end the opera. But I never said thet, Sir Samuel!"

"Business, Mr Vimes" Angua prompted. When she spoke, a normally noisy dog kennel went _very_ quiet, except for an apprehensive whimper.

They went over the facts together.

"But that's impossible!" Angua burst out. "A human gets the better of a Ridgeback, an animal bred to fight _lions_, for goodness sake, leaves it wounded and catatonic with fear, and leaps the fence to safety in the next garden? But no human could deliver a wound like that!"

"End normally, once a Ridgebeck closes its jaws on prey, it _does not let go" _Johanna said, "Not even if the lion has inflicted mortel injury on it. It is a simple-minded fighter thet sees a fight es kill or die, with no in between. I hev never before heard of one which is _terrifed_ into giving up the fight!""

"Johanna" said Vimes, as he lit a cigar. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but Sergeant deKok's statement that he clearly saw either a black human, or a black-clad human, leap over he fence. Is there any possibility at all that it could have been one of your people? "_Black clad human_" does rather point to an Assassin."

"No. Elmost certainly not. I cen think of no current contract I know ebout, on the head of my Uncle or anyone at the Embassy. I check regularly for interesting essignments I could usefully take. I should know! End even if Lord Downey suspected me of conditional loyalties end sought to keep the existence of such a contrect from me, my friends would find out and edvise me, so as to warn my uncle."

Johanna smiled

"Besides, we ere taught _methods_ for dealing with large vicious guard dogs. The dog, unfortunately, would elmost certainly be dead had an Assassin neutralised it."

"Such as?" Angua prompted.

Johanna uncovered her left forearm. A shaped piece of black-enamelled armour, strapped into place underneath, covered her arm.

"While I em training Kaffe and Crème, this is a precaution. This armoured sleeve is celled a _vembrece_. The armour is, I hope, light and strong enough to withstand quite a hard dog bite. One of many techniques would be to present the charging dog with your erm to bite on. Es it bites the armour on your left erm, you steb it through from underneath with the dagger in your right hand. No more guard dog."

"So, more sophisticated than a bite?" Vimes asked.

"Infinitely so."

The ambassador nodded.

"So enother piece of the puzzle. Human, animal, but not trained essessin. Sir Samuel, Sergeant, may I show you the grounds and the scene? Johanna, perhaps you and Konstabel Huik cen.."

But Johanna was already unpacking anaesthetic, cloths, and surgical steel from various pouches and pockets.

"Let us work, Franz." she said, kindly "I know you're a competent animal doctor, but you could be better. If I ask Onkle, I'm sure he'll release you to the Zoo for a day or two each week to learn more. Now let us anaesthetise the patient.."

As she worked and guided he young guardsman, johanna's brain was turning over possibilities.

_The Ridgeback was seriously frightened and traumatised by what it encountered. This is not good normal Ridgeback behaviour. Where else have I seen such fear among animals lately? Yesterday at the Zoo, when Sergeant Angua visited. Every cage and enclosure she walked past went very, very, quiet as she passed. I smelled fear. And the same today in this kennels. Normally a place of noise, the moment the werewolf sergeant walked in, there was hushed watchful quiet, even fearfulness. _

_Does this mean our assailant is a rogue werewolf? What sort of pattern does a wolf's jaw make when it bites? I will check with a suitable animal skull from the Department. And if a wolf is ruled out, are there other were-creatures on this Disc? Angua should know if her people have rivals. _

The ghost of a memory plucked at Johanna's brain again It whispered a name to her.

_Van Der Post. He is considered unreliable by several academic professions. But I'm sure I read something in his books. What was it? _

Then she turned to more pressing matters.

"See this, Franz? This is the source of our woes. A piece of bowel has been perforated by the attacker's tooth. We must seek to resection. And even then there is no guarantee of success But we must try!"

Her assistant, a young man from Natal province, bit his lip and nodded. Johanna patted his shoulder reassuringly.

"Is kiff"! she said.

* * *

**(1) **Alas, really true. In the old South Africa, now-deceased racist Boer leader Eugene Terre'Blanche was accused of deliberately setting guard-dogs on uwary black employees for fun. Even in apartheid days, this was thought of as unacceptable behaviour by many compatriots. Terre'Blanche was recently beaten to death by two farm employees driven to the edge of heir tether by his treatment of them.

Large guard dogs, such as Dobermans and Ridgebacks, were routinely taught to differentiate between white people (accept) and black people (treat as hostile).

**(2) **Outside Howondaland, we might say "jelly and custard" to denote a happy and desired state of affairs.

**(3)** _Domani _(Italian) tomorrow. Much like the Spanish _mañana - _a laid back Meditteranean attitude where tomorrow, of course, never comes. Vimes is repeating a list of what on Roundworld would be prejudices against the Italians. It is said of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, inaccurately as it turned out, that _at least he made the trains run on time. _


	4. Culture Shock

_**Whys and were-fores c4**_

Johanna returned to take over her class shortly after ten. She was pleased to see thirty quiet, well-behaved, students, quietly absorbing the essence of a lesson on taxonomic classification of animals and plants.

Ruth was supervising the class through a written exercise, and on the blackboard behind her, had chalked up the sequence

_**LIFE – DOMAIN – KINGDOM – PHYLUM – CLASS – ORDER – FAMILY – GENUM – SPECIES.**_

And

"on the Discworld there are SEVEN discrete domains, formerly called "kingdoms".

_Monera, Protozoa, Chromista, Fungi, Plantae, Animaliae. _

_Six = carbon-based life. The seventh = silicon-based life and is called SILICARAE. _

_Warning:- ON NO ACCOUNT USE LINOLEUM'S ORIGINAL TAXONOMY AS THIS HAS BEEN PROVEN FALLACIOUS AND INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. _

_THE APPROPRIATE CLASSIFICATION FOR TROLLS – DECIDED AFTER ASKING THEM FIRST – IS "SILICIUM SENTIENS". AND __NOT__ "STULTUS STERNUM". __1__"_

Johanna smiled at her friend.

"Thenk you for covering my class, Miss N'Kweze. They were well-behaved for you, I trust?"

Pupils were _always_ well behaved in Johanna's classes. A range of sanctions applied otherwise, such as "Report to the Zoo for an hour of Extra Elephants. Wear old clothes. A spade and wheelbarrow will be provided." In extreme cases of indiscipline, Johanna sometimes judged that a threat to remove the offender from all animal-related activities had shock value, especially to the more animal-crazy girl students.

"None at all, miss Smith-Rhodes. Er…"

Ruth's eyes flickered down to Johanna's blood-splattered tunic. The brighter pupils had seen it too and were sitting up straighter and more attentive, wondering who she'd inhumed before breakfast.

"I epologise for being late. I wes celled to an emergency." she said to her class. Adding "Helf en hour ego, I wes up to my wrists in guts. I hev not hed time to change."

She smiled, knowing the effects her words would have on the class, and brightly said:-

"Some people believe there is en eighth classification of domain in the kingdom of life. Coming myself from a _republik,_ I find thet term somewhet outmoded, incidentally, but I suppose we will hev to learn to live with it. But the eighth kingdom. Eny ideas? Miss Hunstanton-Cley?"

She'd picked a bright student.

"Please, miss. The wizards at the University study zoology too. Would this cover quasi- and crypto-zoology? The study of mythological and imaginary animals and plants?"

"Very well done! The putative eighth kingdom is celled the _Mysticae, _otherwise known es the_ quasi, _the_ animale imaginariae, _or the_ halucinatori sanguniae. _Scientific opinion is divided. While I find this area of traditional wizard-lore interesting end heve learned much et the University – enything _funny_, mr Richmond? - I prefer to leave it to the wizards. There are, efter ell, only so meny hours in the day end the world of known enimels is so much richer and satisfying."

Talk of wizards made her feel warm inside. She would be seeing Ponder tonight, for dinner and company. Later in the class, she explained exactly where the blood on her tunic had come from, and engaged her students in discussion on animal medicine.

She emphasised the at least in the case of mammals, it was a logical application of the diagnostic and surgical techniques the Guild taught in emergency field medicine – the heroic surgery you may sometimes have to undertake, where inaction or inactivity would result in the death of a colleague far from a doctor or hospital. Those of you with an aptitude for such work, she said, may well be offered advanced classes, or when you come to decide whether or not to Take Black, you may then have the option of leaving the Guild School and pursuing a medical training at Doctor Lawn's new academy, at the Lady Sybil. And of course, do not be so proud as to consider you can learn nothing from Igors and Igorinas.

Johanna deplored the general ad-hoc and fragmented nature of veterinarian practice on the disc, where it created a series of overlapping practitioners each of whom was skilled, to a greater or lesser extent, in one sort of animal, but largely ignorant of others except for transferable principles of common sense and diagnostics. Doughnut Jimmy, for instance, who was the expert on horses and lacking everything else. Lady Sybil Ramkin, whose skills with swamp-dragons were near-legendary. Lancre-trained witches, who then went on to specialise in pigs or sheep or goats according to need. There were of course the first Igor vets, whose skills were undoubted, but she rather thought some of their interventions went so far as to create whole new species.

The class might like to consider that this was a field of medicine which was largely unexplored, but where a skilled and capable person with the right vocation might find a niche and make a handsome living. She would teach and demonstrate on sick animals at the Zoo, for any student with a desire to assist, as of course her own speciality was large wild animals. The bell rang, she thanked the class, and the lesson ended.

With a little leisure time, fore forewent the nicotine fog of the staffroom and went for a walk on the roof. Up here, on the flat walkway by the parapet, over a hundred feet above the City, the air was marginally cleaner, the noise of the world muted, and thinking time could be had, well away from nearly a hundred members of teaching staff and twelve hundred pupils.

She sat, looked across the City in the direction of Scoone Avenue, and mused on the case in hand. She thought especially of Angua's alarmed and somewhat emotional reaction, when she had asked if there were other known kinds of were-people on the Disc.

"What? No, absolutely not! And I know about vampires and bats, but they don't count! " Angua had looked wide-eyed worried and a little defensive, and she seemed to be arguing her side of the case from emotion and culturally ingrained belief, rather than from cold facts. This was always a bad thing. Johanna had not pushed the point, seeing another immigrant into the big City who, like her, had had to radically alter some of her most cherished lifelong views and opinions in order to survive in altered circumstances. "No. If they did exist we'd know about them. We're told right from the litter-basket that we are special. We are unique. Only we have this gift. We are werewolves! "

"But you're elso told that eating dwarves and humans is perfectly ecceptable" . Johanna had pressed the point. "And you've grown out of thet!. _Ag,_ woman, you're a vegetarian et the great _braii_ of life!"

Pausing only to explain that a _braii_ was a barbecue pot-luck supper, only we call it a _poetkie_, Johanna ( a woman who in her time had left behind cherished beliefs in the inferiority of black people, and who was now dangerously liberal in some of her ideas). had pressed to say that Angua had been the _first_ to refuse her brother's lunatic doctrines about werewolf superiority. Why are you still clinging to it now?

Angua had looked at Johanna with chilly eyes.

"This conversation is _over_." She said. "I have to get back to the Yard".

"As you wish" Johana said, mildly, reflecting that you could know, intellectually, that some beliefs were wrong but still be gut-shocked by seeing them breached and cast aside by others.

As when she'd done the formal course in boxing, for instance, a new fighting discipline to add to her formidable portfolio of skills. Her teacher, Gloria, was a women's champion in her weight, and was a good boxer: her face was hardly marked. She taught classes to make a living, and soon discovered the Assassin was a very capable pupil. Twelve weeks into the course, Johanna and Gloria had sparred each other to an inconclusive draw over three rounds, watched by a breathlessly admiring class; even the male boxers in the gym had ceased sparring and training to gather round and watch. When the bell rang, the two sweat-glistening women had hugged in recognition of the other's ability. Stripping off her gloves and padded helmet, Gloria had said

"Why not come round and have a drink, Jo? You can meet Sam, my husband!"

Something in the way she'd said it, and the appraising gleam in her eye, had put Johanna on guard, but she had agreed.

Later on, they had returned to her home in Dolly Sisters. Johanna, suspecting a test of some kind, had been shocked to her White Howondalandian roots when she saw Sam, who welcomed her generously, was _black_.

Knowing this was a test, and that she was being judged on her reaction, and valuing Gloria's friendship, Johanna had imposed iron control on herself. She had extended a hand, and said

"So very gled to meet you, Sam!" and he had accepted it.

But inside, she was resonating with shock and horror that one of the great cultural taboos of her country was being flouted.

_Yes, _she had reminded herself_. This is only illegal at home. This reaction is stupid, irrational and emotional. Love and apartheid do not mix. Love laughs at racial segregation. And these two fine people, one of whom is my friend, are in love. _

In Gloria's eyes, she had seen the judges hold up at least a couple of nines. But however irrational her head told her the reaction was, she still felt shock and not a little repulsion deep inside. It took a while for this to die. She still felt its aftershocks occasionally.

Johanna wondered if she'd inadvertently touched off the same sort of primal reaction in Angua, a woman who she knew to be otherwise fair and open-minded.

As the bell rang for next lesson, and she let herself back into the building by a far more conventional method to take her next class, Ruth N'Kweze was worrying over her own morning mail.

As a Zulu citizen in Ankh-Morpork and relative of the Paramount Chief, she had received a formal invitation to an Embassy dinner that night. Normally, these were, at best, a pleasant waste of an evening, and at worst, a bore wrapped up in diplomatic formality. But there was no getting around it: the Lesser Paramount Princess of Kwa'Zululand (she had at least thirty older sisters) was expected to be at the Embassy, which was on Brookless Lane in Ankh, still part of the diplomatic quarter, but a diplomatically acceptable distance away from that of Rimwards Howondaland.

Idly, she wondered if _he_ would be there, the new Assistant Third Secretary who made her eyes narrow with desire and want. He both attracted her and made her fearful at the same time – a toxic blend that clever, sensitive girls of nineteen are particularly susceptible to.

According to protocol, she went to report to the Master that she had received such an invitation, and to ask if the Guild required any members of Ankh-Morpork's diplomatic community to be _watched_ tonight. She could also borrow a ballgown from somewhere. After all, the invitation had not stipulated formal dress. **(2)**

* * *

**(1) **Early Disc zoologist Carl Linoleum had a misplaced and suicidal sense of humour. Figuring they were too thick to notice, he classified Trolls as "_stultus sternum"_ – stupid rocks. They noticed.

**(2) **In this case, "formal dress" meant little more than a modesty-saving loin cloth and the appropriate animal-skin headdress, wrist and ankle bands, and feathers. In deference to Ankh-Morpork, she would have worn a long elegant coat in the coach.


	5. Various Dinners and aftereight mints

_**Whys and were-fores c5**_

In the Assassins' Guild that evening, two women were preparing for a night out. Johanna and Ruth had met up for mutual reassurance, and were checking each other's dress and appearance for flaws.

Noting the younger woman was uncharacteristically anxious, Johanna paused in buckling on her sword-belt and said, kindly,

"He's going to be there tonight, isn't he, _skat_?"

"Skat" was a term of endearment used only between close friends: it was practically unheard of for a Boor to use it to a Zulu. But in Ankh-Morpork, it wasn't just Johanna's cultural beliefs that had been questioned and subtly altered. Ruth smiled at the thought of the sheer amount of shift necessary for Johanna to be able to do that, and for her to be able to take it in the spirit intended. She nodded.

"He is a very attractive man. Very attentive. Very loving. But there is also something there that tells me he is a very bad boy."

Johanna nodded. She had had her own share of youthful crushes, although they had mainly come to nothing.

"It sounds to me like you've met en irresistible bestard." She said. "Tell me about him."

"What can I say? He comes from a good but not royal family. His father is colonel of an _impi. _He has been sent here on a diplomatic posting to learn more of the ways of Ankh-Morpork and its people. He arrived in the City last September**(1)**, so he has not been here too long. I met him shortly afterwards. He is ambitious. Compared to the rest of the new diplomats who arrived with him in September, he has advanced far. My uncle, the ambassador, has advanced him in rank as he shows great promise. "

Johanna, who knew about ambassadorial uncles, nodded in sympathy.

"_Ag, _when the embassador is family, you have less excuse for ebsenting yourself from officiel parties." she said. "You heve to make whet emusement you cen."

She studied herself in the mirror. Strictly speaking, a lady Assassin could be any colour she liked when she was off duty. Black made those wardrobe issues easier to manage, although when out without obvious weapons once, a red-haired green-eyed woman in black had been mistaken for a witch more often than she cared to remember. She had been importuned for potions, to lay curses, to give blessings, to deliver a Caroc reading, and to cure a sick animal. While Johanna could bless and curse with the best of them, on a strictly lay footing, and she was competent in those sorts of potion the Assassins' Guild found professionally interesting, she was wary about being seen to pose as a witch: _real _witches were as keen for a quiet word with imposters and wannabees as the Guild was to interview unlicenced Assassins, and she really didn't want the complication.(She _had_ cured the sick animal: this was on general principles and out of ordinary compassion for a suffering creature. But no magic had been involved, just her burgeoning vet-senses).

And black made her, with her naturally pale redhead's skin, look washed-out and sickly, anyway. After some deliberation, she had picked out a simple shift dress in green check. To avoid scenes, she had pinned her Guild badge where it was visible, and had selected a red-leather sword-belt. Her bush machete hung at her hip, with a long dirk on the other side. She also wore her whip, but in deference to this being a semi-formal occasion, had put it out of sight in a dress case. Other, less obvious, weapons were concealed elsewhere about her person.

She nodded at herself in the mirror, taking a twirl in the unfamiliar heels, and thought _this will do. _Although dressing girly still made her feel like a little girl dressing up in mummy's clothes.

She then helped Ruth sort out the kinks in a borrowed blue satin ballgown. _She does look good, _Johanna thought, enviously. _Of the shoulder pale blue with ebony skin and discreet silver costume jewellery. Ag, she would grace a ball at the Patrician's. _

"So whet is the lucky chep's name, then?" Johanna inquired. _I'll see if we have any discreet reports on the fellow. I'll ask at our Embassy as well. BOSS keeps tags on dangerous people at enemy legations. Tell them there's a possibility of an inhumation, so their interests and those of the Guild converge. Gods, if he hurts Ruth, and right now she's vulnerable, I'll take a contract out on him myself __**and**__ pay the Guild tax!_

"Emmanuel N'Juri" she said. "He's from up-country in the deep forest. The stories he tells of the jungle!"

Ruth went into a reverie. Johanna smiled.

A little later Gillian Lansbury arrived. She was the Guild's junior art teacher, with no house responsibilities. With Ruth also likely to be home well after midnight, Gillian would cover for Johanna and do the midnight dorm checks for her.

"Thanks for covering." Johanna said. "Meke yourself et home!"

"Oh, no bother" Gillian proclaimed, in a waft of perfume and silk scarves. "I'm sure it'll be a quiet night for reading!"

She brandished a brick-thick copy of _Brindisian Art Of The Cultural Renaissance _by Sir Reynold Stitched.

"Good luck!" said Johanna, thinking _Better you than me. _

Then they went downstairs to sign out at the porters' lodge. Mr Maroon, young Maroon the post boy's father, watched with interest.

"Business or pleasure, Miss Smith-Rhodes?"

"Definitely pleasure tonight, Mr Meroon!" she said, happily.

"All inhumations and no play, and all that!" the porter replied, contentedly.

They left the Guild, joining the Guild chaplain, The Slightly Reverend Clement N'Effabl., who as a Zulu and a half-brother of Ruth's, had been invited to the same dinner. He was waiting, alone but without fear, in Filigree Street, ready to hail a passing cab. After all, he was both a priest of Blind Io and a fully qualified Assassin. He had nothing to fear on the City's streets.

"Ladies" he said, pleasantly. Johanna greeted him pleasantly. He had been both an education and a good friend to her. Idly, she wondered what sort of inhumation contracts a priest-Assassin took on. There must have been _some_. She also knew he was high in the favour of the Chief Priest, Hughnon Ridcully _Maybe the sort of sticky theological questions that can't be ironed out in Synod, _she mused. She wished she could ask him about this Emmanuel N'Juri, as Clement was a good judge of character. _But not in front of Ruth. _

"Do you wish to share our cab as far as the University?" Ruth eventually asked. "We're going in broadly the same direction. It will be no trouble." Ruth adjusted her assegai and knobkerrie, which in deference to the occasion were in a long dress-bag She twitched her ceremonial ox-hide shield, the colour and patterning of which proclaimed her to be a Paramount Princess of the Royal House. Against a blue ball-gown, it looked incongruous

Johanna considered. Ruth wasn't alone and she was in good hands.

"I'll walk, thanks" she said. "It's not fer, end it's a pleasant evening."

Waving them off, she shouldered her overnight bag, and set off towards the University, keeping the Patrician's Palace on he right as she moved, without haste, towards Peach Pie Street and right onto Turnwise Broadway. This meant she could unhurriedly browse shop windows in the Maul and the Plaza of Broken Moons.

But her Assassin senses broke in even before she left the wide public space in front of the Patrican's Palace. The streets were still thronged in the early evening, and her nerves began to jangle a warning. She was being followed, she was sure of it.

The world would have seen the red-haired girl, idly browsing the goods in a shop window, a large bag dangling from one hand. Closer observers would notice the incongruity of the two swords and the roughly circular leather bag at her right hip.

Even closer observers might suspect she was using the window as a mirror, to discreetly sweep the street behind her for likely marks

_Black. Male. Middle twenties. Ethnicity might be Matabele Zulu. _she thought. _Been watching me ever since I left the Guild._ She also remembered her training. Doctor Perdore, a slightly built grey man who taught Covert Espionage Techniques

_Never assume when you have spotted one person covertly following you that they are working alone. That is overconfident to an extreme. Surveillance teams are called that for a very good reason There will always be two of them. While you are congratulating yourself on seeing the person they intend you to see, the second watcher passes by un-noticed. _

Johanna moved on to the next shop window, still covertly watching for the second person following her. The black man moved unhurriedly on. She scanned the street methodically.

"Sausage-inna-bun?"

She turned.

"Oh, hello, miss. Would you like to try the new recipe sausage? Guaranteed meat?"

She smiled.

"Normelly, Mr Dibbler, we Assassins might be interested in a life-effirming celculated gemble with our lives. But I'm off to a dinner with the Wizerds, end I need ell the stomech-room I cen meke!"

Dibbler smiled, nervously He was aware he owed Johanna a lot of favours from last Summer. She'd got him out of jail, and ensured he had at least a minimal income from the Zoo, which had been established on land to which he held the title. Rent alone guaranteed him a modest living, and he held the position of Head of Marketing on the Zoo board. But the entrepreneurial streak died hard.

"I'm surprised you're still out here with the sausage inna bun business, Mr Dibbler" she said, pleasantly.

"Just maintaining a presence, miss!" he said. "You have to, in the modern mercantile arena."

He dropped his voice, and added

"You know you're being followed, miss? Black man, so tall, looks Howondalandian. And there's a woman, too."

_Ah_, thought Johanna.

"Describe her."

"This one's white, miss. About so tall, grey dress, light-brown hair, carrying a basket."

_Strange, _Johanna thought . _A Zulu, yes, but an inter-racial surveillance team? No wonder I didn't spot her, I was looking for another black. _

"Thank you, Mr Dibbler, you've been very helpful."

"I owe you one, miss. Last summer, the safari park, and all that"

She nodded acknowledgement. A cab passed. On the spur of the moment, she flagged it down and leapt aboard.

"Where to, miss?"

"The Assassins' Guild. Et least to begin with."

She allowed her pursuers to see her get in a cab and go back the way she'd came, whilst attentively looking out for the brunette in grey. Spotting her and memorising her face for later, Johanna got the cab driver to pause briefly at the guild gates, as if somebody were getting out, then directed him to the University by a roundabout route avoiding the Maul and Broken Moons.

"Treat me as if I was new in town end take me the longest wey eround".

The riverside, Holofernes and the Backs later, she was there.

_Disinformation. Deception. You can't beat them. _

She paid off the driver with a big tip, then considered, and stood back to allow a group of student Wizards to hop over he wall using the time-honoured loose-brick-and-a-leg-over method. When they were gone, she hefted her bag, hitched up the verdammte skirt, and used the same route to get in.

* * *

Professor Ponder Stibbons, like other Faculty members, now had a suite of rooms to call his own In his case, they had previously belonged to the former Dean, prior to his defection to the post of Arch-chancellor of Brazeneck University in Pseudopolis.

A series of omissions, oversights and inability to think trough to the deep consequences of what they were doing, combined with shrewd political advice from Johanna, (who had graduated _summa cum laude_ from Lady T'Malia's classes in Realpolitik and Political Expediency) had propelled Ponder up the Faculty ladder. Far from being one of the lowest and most menially despised Faculty wizards, Ponder was now, de facto, Dean of the University, second only to Mustrum Ridcully. **(2)**

This had all come about partly because older and lazier Faculty members had progressively dumped so many unwanted academic positions and Chairs on him over the years that slowly and surely, with nobody but Johanna realising this, Ponder now held a 51% controlling vote at Faculty meetings all on his own.

He had complained bitterly about this on one of their earlier dates, and she had diligently gone away and read up on University law. Then, in accordance with T'Malia's methodical teaching, she had carefully explained the immense possibilities of the situation to him.

Only a 51% vote at Faculty could strip away some or all of those academic titles. And what do you know, Ponder…

Guided by her, he had used this to devastating effect during the recent issue concerning _foot-the-ball. _His friend, academic mentor and ally, Mustrum Ridcully, had also seen the possibilities inherent in having a sure right-hand-man, and not-so-quietly supported him. Ponder was also sure of the Librarian as a faculty ally, and almost sure of Professor Rincewind.

Now, as Ridcully had quietly warned him, all he had to be careful of was a reversion to older and tried-and-tested means of removing a perceived threat. These included scorpions making a home in his boots, and other little means of removing an obstruction.

Anticipating this, Johanna acted as his security consultant, a legitimate occupation for an Assassin, and had made a point of bringing a cage of meerkats to his rooms. Meerkats are a creature related to the mongoose and native to Howondaland. Just as the mongoose can kill a cobra ninety-five times out of a hundred, meerkats are immune to most forms of scorpion venom and regard them as a delicacy. Using them to sweep his rooms, they had located and eaten eight scorpions, released there by person or persons unknown.

Word had also got out that Ponder's girlfriend would be quietly displeased at any sort of drastic action to remove him from play, and the other senior wizards had been forced, reluctantly, to accept the new order of things.

Ponder appreciated the new rooms, including the king-sized double bed. The old Dean had comfortably filled it on his own: Ponder discovered it had room and to spare. He had invested, at Johanna's prodding, in a new mattress and bedlinen, and was currently that evening dealing with an even more terrible threat.

The formidable University housekeeper Mrs Whitlow, seizing her chance now the old Dean had gone, had mustered a crack elite squad of housemaids and really, thoroughly, deep-cleaned the rooms top to bottom, in a shakeup they'd not seen for thirty years. A lot of clutter had gone, furniture rearranged, and - Mrs Whitlow being a stickler for fine detail – a chocolate mint, in its wrapper, had been left on the pillow on the side of the bed Ponder did not sleep on. Flowers had also appeared from nowhere. And an as-yet-empty icebucket and two glasses had arrived from nowhere. Ponder wondered if Mrs Whitlow had become part of the conspiracy to get him safely married off to a _lovely_ young woman. An Assassin, yes, but we can't help who we are.

Ponder had to admit it looked a lot better.

In common with most senior Faculty members, the room had a unique window that could be opened to any time, anywhen. Ponder's was permanently set, these days, to Howondaland. Inconveniently, it was the privy window. Johanna had still been entranced, and had sat there for ages, just observing. He considered the occasional elephant trumpeting or lion roaring from nearby had been a small price to pay, and routine defensive spells stopped anything from inadvertently getting in. In any case, it opened to a point in space fifty feet or so above the Tset'se veldt.

"Ponder" Johanna had said, reflectively, "Whet's to stop you moving the window to somewhere near Piemburg, my home town? We could just step through and just be there! It would save so much trevelling!"

He had shook his head, regretfully.

"It wouldn't work, doll" he said, feeling awkward about using the _Vondalaans_ term of affection. She had blushed slightly.

"It's the Uncertainty Principle, you see. You can know _where _you are, but this excludes the possibility of knowing _when_. Hex's best guess is that this is Howondaland as it was five hundred years ago. If I set it for today, it would give me an entirely random somewhere else. There's no way of getting both at once. I can move the focus, certainly, but all we'd be looking at would be open veldt where one day, Piemburg _will_ be. I'm sorry about that."

He smiled, and said

"Lord Vetinari was asking the same question. I understand he was considering the applications of using it as a surveillance device. Fortunately, while you could in theory home in on a certain place, it could be that place as it was ten thousand years ago with the people you want to watch yet to be born. There's sbsolutely no way of matching the desired place and the desired time."

She smiled.

"Five hundred years ego? My people were just erriving in Howondaland then! Maybe I'll get to see the Boortrekkies!"

He sighed.

"If you do, try not to interact with them" he advised her "That sort of thing sets up all sorts of messy paradoxes."

And now she was here, and they were at Dinner together, much to the consternation of the older wizards who weren't at home with the idea of women, outside certain well-defined parameters of cook, waitress or cleaner. They certainly couldn't get the idea that a wizard might be able to have a normal romantic life, and still be a wizard, despite the number of times Ridcully tried to explain the modern thinking involved.

"It does _not _dissipate the magical flux, Runes, nor does it make hair grow in the palms of yer hands!" he bellowed. "And yes, you fellows, I know all about sourcerors and how you get them, but provided they stop at seven children, there isn't an issue!"

"Never had married wizards in _my_ day" grumbled Recent Runes. "all these new-fangled ideas seeping into the profession."

Ridcully snorted.

"If we'd had a few more married wizards in _our_ day" he harrumphed, "then we'd be a lot more sane and balanced and normal! Give a fellow a wife and kids to go home to at nights, sets yer feet on the ground wonderfully!"

Ridcully's eyes softened and he went into a reverie.

"Could have so easily done it with Esmerelda" he mused. "If she's honest, she thinks so too. But then, according to her, we'd have had twenty years happy wedlock and a housefire that kills both of us and the kids. It all balances out, somewhere."**(3)**

" Also had some damn' happy times as an uncle, with me brother Hughnon and his wife and kids. Damn' happy**. **So you see, lad, Johanna, I don't begrudge you. If you get that far, you are of course inviting me."

"If it gets that far, sir, my parents wish me to marry at home, in Howondaland. We'd heve to charter a ship to get you ell there!" Johanna said.

"Hmm. Four and a half weeks' voyage, isn't it? On a boat full of Wizards and Assassins. Sounds like a dull voyage, but at least Donald Downey and meself can pack our fishing rods! I've heard there are _big _fish in your waters!"

Johanna described fishing for barracuda and shark in the waters off Home, where you had to strap yourself into a seat that was bolted firmly to the ship's deck and use the heaviest duty equipment. Ridcully listened, entranced.

"What d'you use as bait?"

"According to the joke, Archchancellor, isn't it a black crewman?"

"Poor taste there, Wrangler."

Johanna laughed. She'd heard all the jokes about White Howondalandians by now. It was just a pity so many of them were rooted in _fact_…

Somebody started humming the latest subversive song from the Blue Cat Cabaret.

_Oh I've never met a nice White Howondalandian, _

_And thet's not bleddy surprising mon! _

'_Cos I've never met one either…_**(4)**

"Pack it in, Bengo!" Ridcully said, firmly. He turned to Johanna.

"I hear there was some fuss at your Embassy last night?"

"Yes. " Johanna said. She'd heard the hit satirical song hummed in the street and didn't like it very much. Any pupil heard humming or singing it at the School was almost certainly in trouble with her. She briefly explained to Ridcully and the wizards what had happened,

"The intruder mey have been scouting the quickest ettack route on my uncle and aunt. It was not coincidental he chose to cross the fence at thet point. From where he hed been hiding in the Brindisian Embassy grounds. And to which he escaped efterwerds, without detection by the Brindisians!" she added, pointedly, glaring at Professor Bengo Macarona.

Macarona avoided her glare and looked away. He was belatedly realising that a sensible man avoids provoking Assassins.

"Sir, you could help me. I hev been co-opted onto a certain investigation es a Wetch special konstabel. I recall the name of an ecedemic who mey be of essistence. Es you know, the Disc's ecedemic community is a small world where everyone knows of each other. Whet could you tell me of a Professor Laurens van der Post?"

"Oh. Loony Lawrence" said Ridcully, dismissively. "Complete maverick, utterly unsound, away with the fairies, totally unhinged. I've been tryin' to get him here for _ages_, the fellow would fit right in here! Believe he qualified from Witwatersrand University in your country, m'dear. There's quite a useful school of wizardry startin' there. Some of our graduates who took the ten-dollar emigrant ticket. The head man at least has the common decency to call himself the director, and not the Arch-chancellor!"

Johanna made a "go on" expression and looked encouragingly at him.

"Chap spent a lot of time on the ground with your, er, _native _peoples. Wrote a few very provocative books on native religion and magical practices. I believe they were not to the likin' of your governemt and some of 'em are on the banned list? Bound to be a copy in our Library, you can find anything else you want there. Where is the damned Librarian, anyway? He can make himself useful to you and help with this. I'll leave him a note!"

* * *

The Librarian was currently eighty feet above street level, anxiously watching the Ankh-Morpork night.

"oook!" he murmured, worried. Something was very wrong. His acquired jungle senses, although he'd never seen a jungle in his life, were twanging with urgent signals to his brain. There were _predators_ down there. Oh, there always were predators in Ankh-Morpork, but these were different, new to the City. And it stank of something that was doubly bad news to an orang-utan.

It smelt of large carnivorous cat. And one that could climb trees to get at its prey.

And then he saw them. Two flowing shapes in the moonlight. Pale golden spotted coats. And then he saw what happened to the luckless Thief Damien Boggins as he left the pub and turned down a dark alley.

He watched, as in accordance with their primal instinct, the two leopards dragged the as-yet-uneaten body into a high place, where it would be safe from hyenas, and padded off in a Hubwards-by- turnwise direction, towards Ankh.

With infinite care, the Librarian followed, swinging from roof to roof, but lost them at the Apothecary Gardens, where the buildings began to space out more and could not be safely crossed at rooftop height. He had no desire to descend to ground level, but watched them until they were out of sight, heading up Prouts towards Scoone Avenue.

After a while, he judged it was safe to return to the library, where he found Ridcully's note.

* * *

Dinner at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy was lavish and generous. Ruth recognised other countries' diplomats, including Johanna's uncle, who appeared quite at his ease, urbane, witty, and every inch the career diplomat, not at all concerned that strictly speaking, he was on enemy soil. In a curious blend of Howondalandian and Ankh-Morporkian practice, a master of ceremonies had boomed out, as she entered:

"Pray silence, please, for the Paramount Princess of the Royal House of Kwa'Zululand, Her Royal Highness Ruth N'Kweze!"

Ruth had mixed feelings about her title. She'd heard that the Dwarvish equivalent of "King" translated as "Senior Mining Engineer", and was minded to treat her own status similarly prosaically. It was hardly _exclusive_, after all: her father, the Paramount King, had thirty wives and nearly two hundred children. There were at least seventy Paramount Princesses, many much senior than she was. She had hardly used the title at school, but had noticed that in the eyes of some silly snobbish white people, being a princess outweighed the social disadvantages of being black of skin. She was not above playing it for advantage if she had to.

A typically Ankhian grand house had been subtly converted on the inside so that the stateroom looked as much as possible like the interior of a grand kraal, a chief's longhouse. Those disconcerting corners and straight lines had been reshaped into more homely curves, and Ruth appreciated the skill of the architect who had performed the work. The walls were wood-panelled and lined with shields and war-weapons: the painting on the shields conveyed little to white people, but each had its unique place in Zululand's military machine. Distinctive shields and weapons of all the _impis_ hung here, in fact: no doubt Captain Breytenbach, the White Howondalandian Defence Attaché, was studying them as intently as he was to assess if any new Regiments had been added to the roster. She noted that two shields had been re-hung to face the wall, a sign those _impis_ were in disgrace after defeat or poor performance in battle.

She was amused that the serving staff were exclusively white: local people, both permanent employees and temps hired in from Keeble's job shop for the evening. This was probably her uncle's way of making some precise diplomatic point to Pieter van der Graaf and _baas-lady_ Frijda, who unlike her husband did not appear at ease and was responding with haughty _froideur._

She recognised her server as an occasional employee at the Assassins' Guild, and courteously said hello.

"Miss Ruth, isn't it? You're looking lovely tonight!"

"Thank you" she said, to the smiling waiter.

_Well, somebody's happy and contented in their job, _she thought, remembering a time when Johanna had used her to infiltrate the White Howanadalandian embassy, in the guise of a humble maidservant.**(5) **Her recollection was one of unsmiling subdued black faces living in a sort of purgatory.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. Emmanuel N'Juri had come up behind her, totally silently, like a cat.

Trying not to jump – her heart certainly had – she turned to greet him. He smiled, the sort of smile that made her turn to jelly inside. _And he knew it, the bastard._ Ruth felt the usual intoxication of being with a man who could be witty, charming, and attentive, but also mad, bad and dangerous to know.

"Beautiful lady, I am so glad you are here" he said. She was almost sure he meant it, with that just-on-the-verge-of-mocking expression in his eyes. He smiled, and she saw his canine teeth had been filed to _sharp_ points.

_Some sort of rite of passage in the jungle tribes, _she thought. _It must hurt. _

Having lived in Ankh-Morpork for eight years now, she could not help but think of vampires.

They made small-talk for a while, Ruth finding it pleasant to be able to speak her native language again. Then the bell went for dinner, and Emmanuel took her arm and led her in.

Before eating, imprecations were said to the native gods by a capering and feathered Witch-Finder, one of the Embassy's priest-cum-magic-users. The witch-finders were feared: if they pointed the bones at you and declared you to be a black witch, it meant instant death. They were also, to a man and woman, half-mad and older. Oh, they could perform miracles: they could heal the sick, prescribe potions, placate the fetishes, intercede with the powers. They could certainly perform strong magics. But just as white Howondalandians feared the shadowy Bureau of State Security, black Howondalandians feared the Witch-Finders, for much the same reasons. If they found you treasonous or seditious, you tended to disappear. And they steered government policy at the highest levels.

In the silence following the native grace, Uncle Canaan, the Ambassador, nodded to his nephew Clement N'Fallibl, who stood and recited a grace before meals to the local Gods, Blind Io and as a courtesy, to Great Offler. This reassured the white gurests, who chimed in with a dutiful "amen!" at the proper moments.

Zulu religion was practical and syncretic: it was pragmatic enough to realise the local Gods had most power here, and it did not seek to offend them by leaving them out of the prayers.

"I prefer Bast myself." Emanuel said. "In the Hubwise regions of our continent, the Djeylibeybians worship a cat-headed Goddess who stands for all cats, including the lion and the cheetah, and the leopard. She has the body of a woman and the head of a cat. And their sphinx has the head of a woman, but the body of a cat, and wings that transcend the limitations of both. Have you ever wondered what that symbolism _really _represents?"

There was something in the longing lascivious way he said _leopard_…

"I never took theology at school, I'm afraid. Reverend Clement's classes were always oversubscribed."

"Oh, pious father Clement!" Emmanuel sneered, a nastier side suddenly evident. "An Uncle Tom who abandoned his Gods for those of the white man. No, I'm thinking of something so much _better_!"

_Suddenly he's a vampire again._

After dinner, Emmanuel excused himself.

"This black boy has got to go out there and sing for his supper, I'm afraid" he said. "I wanted to whiten my face and paint my eyes and lips black, but they said that would be irreverent."

Ruth nodded. She'd seen the music hall craze that had come in from Genua and the paddle boats, the Black and White Minstrels, where white men blacked up their faces save for white circles around he eyes and mouth, then sang and danced in a pleasingly "nigger" sort of way. To her, it was distasteful, and only one or two steps above clowning. Every bit as sinister, seeing the way white people lapped it up.6

And then the Leopard Dancers had danced, twenty or so men and women, to the beat of deep jungle drums and some sort of smoky incence filing the hall. She was entranced. It was _sensual._ It was _earthy_. It was _primal. _And those four principal dancers, in the leopard skins and anklets and headdresses… it was as if they were becoming leopards, they were moving so sinuously and gracefully… _that's Emmanuel there! Oh my. He is the best dancer of the lot! _

She stole a look over to the high table. Yes, Lady Frijda, with all the look of a High Priestess of a strait-laced religion who stumbles on an orgy. Pieter van de Graaf, looking on appreciatively at the bare-breasted dancers. _You will see nothing like this in Piemburg! _

And afterwards she was summoned to a private meeting.

"you wished to see me, Uncle?" she said, nervously noting the Witch-Finders were in attendance.

Uncle Canaan did not look happy.

"And I say _again_" he said, to the witchfinder, "she has the right to refuse." He looked at her, and his face said _try not to offend them. _

"Ruth, my dear, the gentlemen have a proposition to put to you."

The senior witchfinder rattled his – her? – necklaces and armlets of linked small bone. Ruth tried to meet the intense gaze that fell upon her. Finally he spoke.

"You are an Assassin, yes? Trained to kill efficiently and quickly on demand."

"On payment, certainly." she said.

"This will be for the good of the homeland. There will be no payment save the thanks of the Paramount." Hissed he witchfinder, rattling again.

A second witchfinder spoke, in a hissing voice.

"We have studied the manners and morals of the Guild. We know it is not unusual for a contract to be taken out on somebody who is themselves an Assassin."

Ruth felt a chill. _Remember you have the right to refuse. _

"We also wish for a meddling policewoman to die." said a third.

"Am I allowed to know their names?"

An iconograph was handed over, wordlessly, followed by a second.

Ruth looked at them and her blood turned to ice.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes. And Angua von Überwald.

"You passed out from the Guild's school as top of her year" the old dry voice said. "Therefore you are the best available to us."

"No." Ruth said. "I will not do this thing. She is a honourable woman and a friend."

"A Boor? A _friend_?" queried the Witch-finder.

"She never once called me _nigger _or _kaffir. _She treated me with respect. She treats me as the equal of any white. She is a good woman."_ And she could kill me so easily The fact she taught me all I know does not mean she taught me all she knows. _

"Think, before you refuse, girl!"

"Ruth tried to fight the oppressive feeling.

"And the other is werewolf. A terrible foe."

"The moon-metal will slay her. That, and fire."

Ruth made her mind up.

"You had the right to ask. I am Assassin. But as an Assassin, I have the right to refuse. I _will not do this_!"

How it might have ended had Clement N'Fallibl not burst in, Ruth did not know.

"This is intolerable!" he burst out. "You are putting the girl to an impossible clash of loyalties!"

"Ah, the priest of false foreign Gods. Have you also gone native? Is your skin turning white?"

"I do know I'm taking her away from this. Taking her home." Clement said. "Do not try to stop me. I am also an Assassin and have loyalties to the Guild. Have you not forgotten?"

As they turned to go, the witchfinder called, softly,

" We can be merciful and accept your refusal. We have other weapons available to us and our spear-arm reaches far and stabs surely. But this word of taboo I lay upon you. Speak to others of what we discussed here tonight, and you will both surely die. Do not forget you both have loyalties to the Paramount, also!"

"Goodnight, Uncle Canaan" Ruth said, softly "I know you advised strongly against this. I hold nothing against you."

The ambassador bowed his head

"Let's go. Quickly" . Clement urged.

She was sorry not to see Emmanuel as they left, making their goodbyes. A servant said she thought Mr N'Juri had been called away in a hurry to attend to an emergency.

She left, wondering how to reconcile a conflict of loyalties and to warn Johanna and Angua they were in great danger. Clement also looked deeply concerned.

* * *

"Well" Johanna murmured, unaware of events at the Embassy, as she snuggled to Ponder in the big bed, "I'm gled you never got me thet unicorn. I'd be useless for handling it now!"

Ponder smiled happily, the Disc having shortly before moved for them both. He still couldn't, for the life of him, see the attraction for her. But when at the end of a lively dinner, your Assassin girlfriend returns to your rooms and pulls you determinedly towards the bed…. Well, a sensible man goes where an Assassin wants him to go.

Somewhere Howondalandian night birds were calling. And an orang-utan?

He heard the sort of discreet knock on the door that happens when the person knocking is almost certain the people inside are doing something very private and may not want to be disturbed.

He heard an "ook?" and looked at Johanna.

"This might be for me" she said, and jumped out of bed. She put Ponder's wizarding robe about her in lieu of dressing-gown, and opened the door to the Librarian, who had an armload of books.

"Oh! Thenk you so much!" she said, and kissed the orang on the top of his head., taking the books from him.

"ook…" said a suddenly happy and bashful orang. Noting Ponder and Johanna probably had been doing private things, he waved goodnight and retreated.

"Laurens van der Post. One of everything he hes written, by the feel of it!" she said, happily. "Now I cen stert to get to the _bottom_ of this!"

Ponder said "nnnngggh…", equally happily .

* * *

**(1) **Yes, I _know_,strictly speaking, in the Discworld calendar it should be Sektober. But Terry himself is just as inconsistent.

**(2) **It had not gone un-noticed in some quarters that all this had coincided with his beginning to date a very clever young lady assassin, who in her own country came from a long-established political family. That's my take on it, but for the detail of Ponder's meteoric rise and self-assertion, see _**Unseen Academicals**_, by Terry Pratchett. Johanna, alas, does not appear in Terry's book, but given Ponder's sudden sure grasp of political reality and his newfound confidence, it's nice to speculate that she's there in the background, advising him…

**(3) See **_**Lords and Ladies, **_by Tery Pratchett.

**(4) **The Roundworld British satirical show _**Spitting Image**_ caused controversy with a catchy and inflammatory ditty about the impossibility of meeting a pleasant and amenable White South African. You-tube on "Spitting Image" and "South African Song" for the full unedifying version.

**(5) **See my story_**Murder Most 'Orrible. **_

**(6) **it also strained race relations in Ankh-Morpork. A large black-skinned stevedore had been given a light sentence by the Patrician in mitigation, after a pub brawl sparked off by a drunk calling "Oi! You! Darkie! Give us a song! Swanee River!" Vetinari agreed that a large degree of provocation had applied, and allowed the defendant to be bound over for breach of the peace, breach of the pub, and several counts of assault.


	6. First Blood

_**Whys and "were"-fores c6**_

Gillian Lansbury allowed two of Johanna's students, whose name had risen to the top of the puppy-walking-and exercising rota, to take Kaffe and Crème out for their evening walk. This was a popular chore among the students after their evening prep was completed. She made herself a pot of tea and selected a plate of biscuits, then settled down to read Reynard Stitched's magnus opus. Johanna's rooms were high up in the building, conveniently located for Raven House and its student dorms, and Gillian appreciated being able to read by the fading light of day, sitting by the window with a reading lantern ready for when the light faded too much.

Time passed quickly, and the duty students returned with the dogs, staying to feed them and bed them down.

"Pleasant walk?" asked Gillian.

"It was fun, miss!" said one. "We passed these obvious Thieves' Guild people, but Kaffe and Crème both started really growling at them, and you should have seen them move! But there's a funny thing. The dogs just would not go down near the Palace. It's as if there was something there that frightened them. And these dogs don't get frightened easily. Do you think we should tell Miss Smith-Rhodes when she gets back?"

Gillian considered. "She'll want to know. By all means tell her in the morning. A lot of odd things have been happening in the city recently."

"Like the escaped leopards? The Times says some might have escaped from the zoo."

The pupils looked both excited and doubtful. Gillian remembered the rather excitable headlines:

_Other cities have urban foxes. Has Ankh-Morpork upped the stakes yet again and introduced urban leopards? _

_Mystery of mutilated corpse in alley. Identified as Augustus Yarrow (56) of no fixed abode. _

_Unidentified Big Cats seen in city, sometimes by reputable witnesses. Watch mystified._

_City Zoo and Animal Management Unit under scrutiny. Zoo director Johanna Smith-Rhodes (29) denies negligence and claims all animals are accounted for. _

Gillian shook her head.

"I rather doubt it too" she said. "Miss Smith-Rhodes prides herself on her management of the Zoo. And I consider she would _notice _if she were to mislay a few leopards. Now be off to bed with you both, it's getting late!"

Gillian settled down to her reading. It got steadily darker outside. Presently she reached for a Lucifer to light the lantern.

* * *

"Are you sure?" Mr Gritchlow exclaimed, then bit back the remark as bloody stupid. Of course Schmendrick was sure. He was a bloody golem, wasn't he? And if he counted six leopards in Leopard Enclosure Two then there were six leopards in Enclosure Two. Golems saw what was really there and knew how to count.

But all the inventories and manifests and census counts said there were only _five_ leopards in Enclosure Two. The number had been constant for months. So where had the sixth leopard come from?

"Thank you, Schmendrick." said Mr Gritchlow, wearily. "I'll mention it to Miss Smith-Rhodes in the morning. Maybe she found an extra one somewhere, and meant to tell me about it later."

"And The Other Strange Thing, Mr Gritchlow."

"Go on."

"One Of Them Seemed Strange. Not Quite Right. I Cannot Be More Precise Than That."

Mr Gritchlow knew where he was now. This was an _opinion_. Opinions could be safely disregarded next to facts.

"I'll mention it to her. Now off you go, Schmendrick!"

* * *

As night fell, Elizabeth N'Kibli went to the rear of the leopard enclosure, behind the shelter provided for the animals against Ankh-Morpork weather. She rooted around until she found the cache of human clothing she had lightly buried there. She concentrated for a moment, and made the Change. She screamed with pain and ecstacy as her body altered and flowed into new patterns. Aware she was now an apparent human in a cage full of leopards, and wanting no complications, she swiftly donned the modesty-saving shift dress and shoes, she scrambled up and over the two security fences, and came out on the service road behind the zoo pens and enclosures. She was aware she smelt of earth and grass and fields, but this was sweet compared to many of the disgusting white humans in this city. She would pass, perhaps, for a farm-girl returning from the nearby fields. Twenty minutes later, unheeded, she was on the last omnibus back to the City, handing the conducting dwarf a penny fare. She would report back to Them, and would dance for the Embassy guests later.

* * *

Gillian continued to read by lantern light till late into the night. She paused only to make herself more tea and select some more of Johanna's biscuits, treading softly so as not to wake the dogs.

Returning to her seat by the window, Gillian tried to resume reading, but something was subtly wrong. She checked the clock. Ten to midnight. Soon be time to do the Duty Round. What was it Jo said? Just count heads, and if the tally isn't right, identify the missing pupil and report it to the Porters' Lodge.

She sighed, and mindful of her training, took the precaution of closing the window. Then, locking the door behind her, she went on the round. She wasn't reassured by the crying girl in the third-year dorm who had woken up the neighbouring beds.

"What's happening here, then? You know you ought to be asleep!"

"Please, miss. She's just had a really bad nightmare and it's not just her. Jenny had a bad dream too."

Gillian nodded, sympathetic, but also suspicious that this was an elaborate ruse to distract her attention while something illegal went on.

"It helps if you talk about it" she offered. "Bad dreams are scary while they happen, but when you wake up and try to describe what was so frightening, it can often be too ridiculous for words!" (Gillian's recurring nightmare, which she was blowed if she'd tell anyone about, involved being chased around a deserted Royal Art Museum by the Mona Ogg's teeth. She'd never really liked that painting.)

The girl was fighting for breath.

"Big cats, miss. Getting into the Guild. The spotted ones. Leopards".

"Well that'll serve you right for listening to scary tales and reading the Times before bedtime!" Gillian scolded her, but not unkindly. She raised her voice. "Now listen to me. This place is full of weapons and people who know how to use them. It is securely guarded by day and night. Do you think any leopard would last _five minutes_ in this Guild before the alarm was raised? There's always room for another trophy in the Master's office!"

She allowed the laughter to dissipate, and added, practically "And in any case, paws cannot open windows. If you are frightened, close and latch them. Now if you need a mild sedative, I can call Matron Igorina? No? Then, ladies, a very good night to you!"

Gillian completed the duty round, then returned to the House Mistress's apartment, with a prickling feeling at the nape of her neck as if something were following her.

_They say some of these corridors are haunted, _she rationalised to herself, as she entered the apartment.

The first thing she saw were the two dogs, wide-awake and whimpering with fear. Something was definitely wrong.

Anyone looking at Gillian Lansbury would see headscarf, big round glasses, silk scarves, flounces, frills, ridiculously large hoop earrings, and a generally bohemian demeanour. This obscured the fact she was a trained Assassin, a product of one of Lord Downey's Mature Student Classes. A bohemian artist would never have run to Johanna's weapons rack, and selected two daggers which she tucked through her belt, and two pistol crossbows which she swiftly cocked and nocked. She took a handful of spare bolts, and tucked these into her belt also. She then ran and extinguished the lantern, then stood back in the shadows.

"Right!" she said, full of purpose. "Bring it on!"

She didn't have long to wait: a shadowy figure appeared on the other side of the window.

_Ninety feet up? _She wondered. She looked down at the dogs, who had built up to a crescendo of frightened whining. This ruled out Johanna, returning early and taking the direct route home out of bravado. In a split-second, as she levelled the crossbows and fired through the glass, she knew it had to be a foe. She heard glass break and a shriek from outside, and the figure disappeared. She moved position in the shadow, counting the seconds.

_No, it hadn't fallen, or she'd have heard the splat by now. _

She swiftly reloaded the crossbows. A hand punched through the glass, seeking for the window catch. As it swung open, she caught a glimpse of a dark body in some sort of animal loincloth. _So there are at least two of them. _

For a moment, her eyes met those of a black-skinned man wearing an animal-skin headband. As he opened his mouth to hiss at her, she saw his canine teeth were filed to sharp points. She fired again. At that range, the crossbow bolts should have gone through him like a hot knife through butter. They merely stood out of his upper arm at her like pins in a cushion.

He grinned at her, plucked the bolts out, and threw them back at her, in a derisive "want to try again?" gesture. He grinned again, white teeth gleaming in a black face, and tapped a pouch he wore at his neck. Then he called something to unseen associates in an unfamiliar language, and abruptly disappeared. She heard fast scuffling outside, and threw down the crossbows. They were functionally useless.

Gillian, daggers readied, risked running to the window, She was not so foolish as to lean out. Instead, she shrieked

"Alarm! Alarm! Armed intruders! Alarm!"

But the noise of a struggle and the screams were already alerting the Guild.

Hearing footsteps and concerned voices outside, she threw the door open.

Her alarm had turned out the School: senior pupils on the Black course appeared in the corridor, night-gowned and slippered, but carrying an impressive array of personal weapons.

"What happened, miss?"

"There was an attack. On this room. I believe it was intended for miss Smith-Rhodes. But the attackers must have realised I was the wrong person, and retreated".

She detailed a group of senior pupils to guard the corridors and protect the younger ones, then ran down to the courtyard with a squad of the best-armed senior girls. Here, she saw the Guild was turning out and other Houses had had much the same idea as herself. She heard Lord Downey to Grune Nivor:-

"Well, there's a broken window in Raven House that wasn't there before…"

"That was me, master."

She pushed through several pyjama'd senior boys holding swords and crossbows. Downey raised a quizzical eyebrow. She explained what she'd seen. He nodded. She abstractly noted that she now had the privilege of having seen what the Guild Master wore in bed. Candystripe pyjamas with fluffy white slippers, under a black dressing gown.

"You did well, Miss Lansbury. Well done. There is some blood on the flagstones underneath the broken window. _Keep that crowd well away from the space underneath the window!_ At least you managed to draw blood on our attackers._"_

Downey took charge, detailing various teachers to select a handful of the students present, and thank the others, while sending them back to their dorms to await instructions. The less people milling about out here, the better.

While he felt that the attackers, who from Miss Lansbury's account numbered at least three, had long since left the building, supported by the regrettable fact the Mr Maroon had been knocked down and injured while trying to bar their exit, he thought it advisable for everyone's peace of mind that he premises be searched. Which means work for us, ladies and gentlemen. Any evidence, such as the blood trails, was to be marked and preserved. Miss Lansbury's expended crossbow bolts were to be located and kept in case the blood on them could tell Matron Igorina anything. Did anyone apart from Mr Maroon see them leave? No? And he is regrettably still unconscious? Advise me when he awakes. And when Miss Smith-Rhodes returns from, er, wherever she is tonight, I will require an interview with her at her earliest convenience. Thank you. You have your instructions.

The rest of the night was spent calming and reassuring younger pupils who were too excited to sleep, and the search took till three to complete to Downey's satisfaction.

Gillian finally stumbled into bed at nearly four. She shut the dogs in the small kitchen, ensuring they had adequate water and toileting facilities**(1)**, and as a precaution scattered man-traps of various sorts underneath the shattered window in the main room. She checked the kitchen door was secure one last time. She already had a lot to explain to Johanna in the morning. She really didn't want a mutilated dog to add to the list.

_Just wait till I see Johanna, she thought. She assured me there'd be nothing to it. _

She drifted off into a sleep punctuated by uneasy dreams of a huge black cat stalking her through a jungle. Her sleeping mind, though frightened, thought _Well, it makes a change from those bloody teeth. _

* * *

At the earliest possible moment, the Librarian set out from the University and went to the nearest Watch-house, wearing his Special Constable's badge. He dreaded these moments. He'd heard that in Fourecks, an intelligent red-furred kangaroo was frequently faced with having to communicate to humans complex information, such as "Little Bruce has fallen down the billabong! Come quick!" **(2)**

And that kangaroo _never had the slightest difficulty in getting the thick humans to understand! _Hah, just try getting it through to thick Watchmen that on a night foray through the City to clear his head, he'd witnessed two leopards kill a man and drag his body up onto an adjacent flat roof, when your only word is "OOOK!" It gave him a headache, it really did. He really wanted a quiet word sometime with that bloody smug kangaroo.

Fortunately, the Sergeant on duty was Angua, who grasped the basics quickly. She nominated a Watchman to run to her lodgings and get Cheery Littlebottom, quickly. Another escorted her as she ran after the Librarian, the stink of blood – and, she uncomfortably realised, leopard – growing in her nostrils.

"Ook, ook, ook a OOK!"

"Just up here? On this flat roof? "

Angua hardly had to ask: she smelt the trail of blood as clearly as she could see it.

_The killing was done down here, at street level. Two cat-like shapes converging on a helpless drunk. Too much blood. Blood-alcohol. Cheap gin. _

Constable, just climb up on that bin, would you?" she said, sweetly, "Pull yourself up over the edge and tell me what you see."

She wasn't going up there herself, that was for sure. Seeing what was left of Yarrow had raised old atavistic memories of a time when…

_When the Clan caught up with the running human, he was crazy with fear. The fear-smell contrasted vividly with the clean crisp tang of snow. Delphine Seraphine had thrown back her head and howled. She then indicated the two youngest members of the clan should share the honour of the kill, to blood them. _

_Wild with the desire to kill, to be adult members of the pack and no longer cubs, Wolfgang and his sister had trotted forward, slavering…_

Angua shook her head. That belonged to a different person in a different time. She heard the constable stumble and begin vomiting. She nodded. Now a new Constable was, in his way, bloodied. He'd seen his first dead body and had taken a step away from being a recruit.

_Could Johanna be right? Could there be other weres? _

She shuddered and recoiled from the thought. _No, it can't be. We are the only ones. We must be. _

She was due to share a patrol with Johanna the next night. Maybe together they could find a glimmer of light in this darkness.

"Let's wait for Cheery." she said, decisively.

* * *

**(1)** Old copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times would be positively relieved to be used for fish and chip wrapping, considering the alternative uses that could be found for them.

**(2) **Ref, Australian TV series **"_Skippy the Bush Kangaroo_". **


	7. Voorslag!

_**Whys and "were"-fores c7**_

Clement and Ruth arrived back at the Guild shortly after one in the morning to find the place in uproar with parties of armed Assassins rushing to and fro. Mr Maroon was not in the Porters' Lodge when they signed in: the desk was being temporarily staffed by the Guild's fiery Quirmian mistress-at-arms, Madame Emmanuelle Lapoignard les Deux-Épées.

She greeted them warmly, but they noticed she had her sword in her hand, ready for instant use.

"What happened?" they asked, taking in signs of struggle in the gateway outside and what looked like patches of blood on the stones.

Emmanuelle shrugged.

"We were caught with our _culottes_ down and sitting on the privy." she said, graphically. "An attack was made on the Guild itself. Somehow, three intruders got in without detection or challenges, with the intention of assailing an Assassin in her rooms."

Clement and Ruth shared an appalled look.

"Fortunately, their target was elsewhere tonight. Her replacement covering her duties was awake and alert and fought them off. She raised the alarm.

"_Le pauvre_ Mr Maroon stepped out with his cudgel, intending to try to stop them on the way out, we believe. He paid for his bravery with grievous hurts and is now in the Lady Sybil, under guard. Lord Downey is furious. The men on guard tonight will be severely reprimanded. Not so much for letting armed intruders sneak past them, although that is grievous enough, but because he is currently forced to speak to Commander Vimes, a duty he finds onerous at the best of times. Mr Stippler has been sent for, to relieve me at the Lodge, and then I may return to my bed. I know my girls in Black Widow House are safe and have no cause for worry there."

Emmanuelle lowered her voice.

"Do not take this the wrong way, _mes amis_, but the attackers are reported to be black of skin. Shortly after they leave, you two return, ostensibly from the Kwa'Zululand Embassy. In the eyes of some, that may make you suspect. I counsel you return to your rooms swiftly and discreetly. There are some exciteable people out there with fingers that twitch at the crossbow."

"Thank you!" said Ruth, dazed.

"How do you know it wasn't us?" Clement asked.

"Two reasons. _Premiere_, I know you both. Neither of you has a personal reason to seek to attack Miss Smith-Rhodes."

Ruth couldn't help herself; she gasped. Emmanuelle looked closely at her, and said nothing.

"_Deuxieme_, two of the assailants were wounded. Not all the blood out there is Mr Maroon's. You carry no obvious injuries. But we can speak of this later. Go and be careful!"

"_Our spear-arm reaches far and stabs surely. We have other weapons." _quoted Clement, as they walked on into the courtyard, taking care to be obvious and visible. Assassins recognised them as they passed, some offering courteous greetings.

And then Downey, his face a mask of controlled rage, stepped into the courtyard, flanked by Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot.

"You've been very helpful, Donald." Vimes said, with gleeful bonhomie. "Thank you. It all helps an ongoing investigation."

"Your co-operation is appreciated, sir!" Carrot said, with rather more sincerity and rather less schadenfreude.

Downey nodded, and caught sight of Clement and Ruth.

"Ah, Chaplain!" he said. "Don't rush off. You too, miss N'Kweze."

There was a noise behind them. They heard Emmanuelle call

"_Arretez_! State your business!"

"Constable Nobbs, miss. Message for Mr Vimes. I was tole he's here."

Nobbs had frozen rigid, as any man will do when Emmanuelle's sword is within touching distance of his neck.

"What is it, Nobby?" Vimes called.

"There's been another murder, sir. Leopards again. Sergeant Littlebottom estimates the body's been cold for four or five hours. She wunt let me chalk up an outline, and sent me here to find you."

His voice had the hurt and slightly petulant quality of a man unreasonably prevented from doing what he liked best, and then sent to collect honey from a hornet's nest.

"We're on our way, Nobby." Carrot called, as Vimes groaned.

"Something's going on in this bloody city!" Vimes exclaimed. "First these sodding leopards, and now this! I'll bet you it all fits in together, if only I could work out how!"

"I'm forced to agree with you, Commander!" Downey muttered. "Those were no ordinary intruders."

"We'll know more when Mr Maroon is fit to speak." Carrot said. "I put a good man on guard at the bedside."

"Who?"

"Constable Shtetl, sir. I noticed at the Zoo the big cats are wary of the golem keepers. They've never encountered golems before, they can't bite them, can't hurt them, they can't figure them out, as most things either run or put up a fight. Most animals they meet don't pat them on the head and say "Pretty Pussy", is what I'm getting at. Maybe they can sense golems are alive but can't smell anything more than old flowerpots. It confuses them, I think!"

"Well done, Carrot. Donald, do you want to put a good man on guard at the Lady Sybil? We've both got an interest, so a joint guard at the bedside? Maroon's your employee, after all."

"I'll attend to it presently, Commander. Thank you for offering."

Vimes tipped his helmet, Carrot wished Downey a courteous good night, and the three policemen went off to the latest murder scene.

"And I even bought new chalks and all!"

"Pack it in, Nobby."

"That's fivepence I won't see again in a hurry…"

Downey waited for them to leave, then beckoned Ruth and Clement over. They found a quiet corner of the cloister to talk in.

"You have both been to the Kwa'Zulu Embassy tonight." He said, without preamble. "Are there any tensions in the air?"

_Only between Mr van der Graaf and his wife, when Lady Frijda tells him off for ogling the dancers, _Ruth thought._ Why is it that the first thing white men of a certain age fixate on is the fact we tend to go bare-breasted at home? It's comfortable and practical in the heat. _

"Well, sir, I did pick up that the Witch-Finders are pressing for a more aggressive line to be taken with White Howondaland." Clement said, smoothly "They're calling for a step-up in military activity on the border, and for pressure to be exerted at all levels and on all possible fronts That's why Ambassador van der Graaf was present. I understand he wanted a private chat with Ambassador N'Vectif to discuss certain concerns. I noticed he'd brought his military attaché, Captain Breytenbach, with him. He was digging too, to find out what he could about Zulu military deployments along the disputed border region of the Ulunghi and Blood River. "

"_On all possible fronts_. " Downey repeated, thoughtfully. "How well do the two ambassadors get on together?"

"Perfectly well, sir. In a funny sort of way, they're almost old friends. It's their respective governments who can't see eye to eye."

"And… this _war on all fronts_ business. Let me speculate that a way of stepping up the tension, if the Witch-Finders want to tip the Paramount King into a war he's reluctant to open, might be the deliberate targeting and assassination of prominent White Howondalandian citizens perceived as open to attack. Sooner or later, the government of Rimwards Howondaland responds with military force. This then escalates into full warfare."

Clement stayed impassive. Ruth saw, with horror, where Downey's shrewd political mind was going. Again, she couldn't control a gasp of horror. Downey gave her a long impassive look.

_He knows! He's worked it out!_

"I know the two of you have loyalties to your nation as well as to this Guild. I won't embarrass you by asking for specific information you might be party to. But you are aware that the intended target for inhumation here tonight was Miss Smith-Rhodes?"

Downey paused again and read their faces. Ruth forced herself to remain impassive.

"Having divided or conditional loyalty is a tricky thing. Sometimes it can be like tightrope walking in a high wind with a long drop underneath you. The trick is balance. To appear to satisfy the conflicting demands of both sides whilst refraining from acting in such a way as to imperil the interests of one or the other. But then, you both know how the game is played."

"Agatean walls, Master?" said Clement, referring to the method used to compartmentalise the mind and keep conflicting or incriminating information in separate boxes.

Indeed. Agatean walls. But Agatean walls are made of paper and bamboo. It is easy to stand on one side and eavesdrop on the other. In the circumtances, I will not embarrass you, by asking if you were approached concerning any contracts. Goodnight."

Downey nodded acknowledgement, and walked off.

* * *

Johanna arrived back at the Guild early next morning. She had taken breakfast at the University, prompting second glances from students in the refectory who saw her eating with Ponder Stibbons. Muttering of "_Stibbo_?" and "Ponder's struck lucky, then!" had been heard, and she smiled. Ponder, who knew he'd struck it lucky and didn't need to be reminded, just smiled.

She had loaded a large stack of books and herself into a cab, and was struggling with them at the Guild gates. Domestic staff were industriously mopping the flagstones, but paused to look at her as if she'd just landed on the Disc.

Puzzled, Johanna called a student over.

"Help me with these books, boy. You cen take them up to my rooms!"

The student took the burden obediently , knowing this had won him two things that would be coveted by his peers. One, he was going into one of the female Houses, normally an offence punishable by the strongest sanctions. The School was perfectly clear on this point: its male and female students could share classrooms, some communal lounges, could go out into the city together in small parties, could share communal homework rooms – but it drew the line, except in certain rigorously defined circumstances, at going into each other's living and sleeping space.

It would also get him a look at the damage in Miss Smith-Rhodes' personal apartment: school legend was that Miss Lansbury had fought one hell of a battle in there, and the place was utterly _trashed. _

Student Assassin Michael Wilton therefore picked up her books without complaint, following her up the stairs. He noted, for lesiuredly contemplation later, that Miss Smith-Rhodes had a fantastic bottom in a dress. He'd heard a lucky wizard was reaping the benefits. And joys, they were passing down a corridor with girls' actual _dorms _on either side… although damn, they'd all be up and dressed by now.

Johanna opened her door, and gasped audibly. She turned to Michael.

"Just put the books down, very carefully, on the table, end then leave" she said, in a low voice. "Here's fifty pence for your trouble. Mind where you put your feet. Thenk you."

The two dogs, who she noted had been locked in the kitchen (Johanna fervently hoped with litter tray facilities) began barking joyously that their mistress was home. Johanna contemplated the shattered window, the broken glass, and the man-traps set just where anyone climbing in would step on them.

"Are you still here? Go!" she said, pointedly, finding a telescopic pole normally used for an extending mirror, and using it to set off the man-traps. As they poinged, catapulted and closed, she called reassurance to her dogs.

_What in Hell happened here? _

Gillian Lansbury appeared, yawning.

"We'll make some coffee" Johanna said. "Then you cen tell me whet the Hell heppened here!"

She went to the kitchen to let two overjoyed dogs out.

* * *

As the morning progressed, Lord Downey received intermediaries on behalf of an unspecified and anonymous client, who tried to arrange contracts on two prominent women in the city. As one had been the target for an attack the previous night, Downey wondered if this was coincidental, or an attempt to muddy the waters. And as the other was one of Sam Vimes' closest colleagues, it was not to difficult for him to refuse the contract and show the broker, courteously, the door. Arranging to have the broker covertly watched, Downey called an emergency session of the Dark Council, at which urgent issues were discussed and plans made. Trusted Assassins were called and briefed with assignments.

He also drafted an urgent message for the Guild's bureau in Rimwards Howondaland, and made arrangements to pay for a special courier to take it directly to Howondaland, courtesy of the new Klatchian flying carpet travel system that could get the messenger there inside three days. It would cost the best part of a thousand dollars to send one letter, but this was an emergency.

The he called Johanna to his office. They had a short private chat about the previous night's affairs.

"Go carefully." he said, deciding not to tell her about the declined contract. "You are valuable to me and the Guild has made a big investment in you and your ideas. I sincerely do not want to lose you. Especially in Vimes' service."

He paused, and added

"Any information you receive while in Watch service that relates to the atttack here you will, of course, pass on to me in strict confidence. There may be advantages to having a Guild member in the Watch."

"Yes, sir" she said, dutifully. _Kak. He wants me to be his spy in the Watch. _

_

* * *

_"So." Said Sam Vimes, as the stretchered and sheeted remains of Damien Boggins, Thief, were carefully eased down from the roof to which assailants unknown had dragged them.

"We now have a dead Thief. I will no doubt shortly have bloody Boggis on my back about the death of one of his members, demanding to know what I'm going to do about it, and telling me it's an utter disgrace that his Guild members cannot go about their unlawful business without running the risk of being torn apart by wild animals. No doubt the bloody Times will run this on the front page as well, and indulge in some Watch-bashing as only they know how. And with two similar cases in so short a time, Lord Vetinari will be summoning me to the palace for a lesson in applied sarcasm. What I want to know is, where are these sodding animals coming from, and where do we find them? Ideally sooner rather than later?"

Sergeant A.E. Pessimal cleared his throat, carefully.

"I have taken the liberty of preparing a map of the City, your grace." He said, in his usual careful way. "I have marked reliable sightings of the animals in green, questionable sightings in orange, and dubious or unreliable sightings in red. The known murder sites are marked with red crosses."

"And this one in red with the exclamation marks?" Vimes inquired, studying the map.

"Number three, Quirm Street" said Pessimal. "you will see it falls some way outside the rough semicircular pattern delineated by the rest. It denotes the bedroom of Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite, who swears blind she saw a nest of them under her bed. Although I do not believe we need detain ourselves unduly with this one, as investigation revealed that an essential item of bedroom crockery normally stored beneath the bed has a, er, pattern of Howondalandian wildlife on it."

Pessimal paused, and added, un-necessarily

"It is possible the lady is somewhat confused."

"Only somewhat?"

Vimes went back to studying the map.

"So if these sightings denote a range, or a territory, that these things have carved out for themselves..." he wished Johanna were here. He would discuss it with her, later. "… and like your domestic moggie, they are extremely uncomfortable about setting a paw outside it… then that explains why they've scouted as far as the fringes of the Shades, but are reluctant to go outside that. So that indicates… what? Why they haven't been seen around Quarry Lane, Dolly Sisters or Short Street. Either they can't get that far during a night and still get home safely – some sort of vampire thing? – or their base is on the Ankh side of the City. Now the librarian reported he saw the animals going in a Hubwards-by-turnwise direction up Prousts towards Scoone Avenue." Vimes stopped dead. An appalling thought gripped him. Especially after his near-neighbours at the Howondalandian Embassy had been atttacked.

"Get a guard on Lady Sybil and Young Sam. People have been mad enough to try before. Brief Willikins."

He looked again.

"If this is a rough semicircle, A.E., then the place you'd stick the compass needle is up _here_, somewhere…"

Cheery, Pessimal, and Angua all turned to look.

"The Tump" breathed Angua. "Overgrown. Derelict. Abandoned, largely. "

"Don't jump to conclusions yet. There's another possibility, the old cemetery on Chrononhotonthologos Street. That's derelict and overgrown too."

They were silent for a moment. Then Vimes said

"When you hook up with the Smith-Rhodes girl tonight, Angua, I want you both to go out and play on the Tump. Check out the cemetery, too. Carrot can work out some back-up arrangements if you get into trouble. By the way, and I don't know if this is related, there was an attempt on her life last night. Cheeky buggers got into the Assassins' Guilds undetected, and I wouldn't like to try it, and got as far as her bedroom window. Fortunately, she wasn't in, she'd lent the room to a colleague, and there was a Hell of a fight. Downey is _furious_."

"We won't know more until Mr Maroon wakes up." Pessimal said. "Then he can tell us what he saw."

"Indeed, A.E. Any other observations?"

"Organised chronologically, your Grace, the sightings share a common factor. They all occur during that part of the lunar month when the moon is waxing from half to full. They fall to zero during the fortnight of the waning moon. So we have perhaps ten days before our leads go cold for this month. Some sort of magic may be involved."

Pessimal eyed Angua speculatively. She tensed, not liking the appraising look.

"It may be akin to that which governs Sergeant Angua's transformations."

"Are you saying some sort of werewolf is involved?" Angua asked angrily, with more heat than the poor man really deserved.

"All the reports are clear about the presence of leopards, sergeant" said Pessimal, mildly. "Perhaps we can make an intuitive leap connecting the facts, and speculate that some sort of were-leopard exists on the Disc?"

"You can speculate all you bloody well like! No! That is _impossible_! We'd have made contact with them before now!" Angua almost screamed. She stalked off, fighting down a need to Change.

"But werewolves exist on this continent. There are none in Howondaland." mused Pessimal. "Leopards come from Howondaland. Until fairly recently none existed here…" he turned away, thinking hard.

" And therefore no opportunity for the two to meet… I believe there is something else, your Grace. I cannot place it now, but I'm sure the connection will come."

"Don't work too hard at it." Vimes advised. "It'll come to mind when you're good and ready. But bloody good work, A.E. I can tell Vetinari now that we might have a firm lead, and we're actively pursuing it!"

Vimes grinned, but wondered why Angua had been so emotional. Her PMT playing up?

* * *

Johanna soon realised something big had happened. Colleagues and friends were all, without exception, advising her to watch your back, to be very careful, to take care. Some of her closer friends were more constructive, asking her if she needed their help to watch out for the people who'd tried to kill her, or to launch a pre-emptive retaliation once her assailants had been identified. She knew that there would be a pretty much automatic contract out on them once identified: the Guild did not like armed intruders on general principles, and anyone launching an attack on an Assassin who was well-liked and had many friends could now measure their life expectancy in days.

She was most surprised by Ruth's reaction: the girl had been very unhappy that morning and when gently pressed, had burst into tears. Johanna had hugged her, friend to friend, and thought

_It's that bloody man. What's his name? N'juri. I'll invite myself to dinner at Uncle Piet's tonight. Find a chance to speak to that disgusting little __**gogga**__ Verkramp__**(1)**__ and find out if BOSS holds any file on him. Ag, I'm going to have to be __**nice**__ to that cane-toad of a man!_

"Whet happened lest night, Ruth? Et the Embassy?" Johanna gently pressed her. The girl's eyes opened wide.

"I'm sorry, Johanna! Please don't ask. I'd talk about it if I only could. But you must be so very careful!"

And she ran off again, to her own room.

_She's been got at, _Johanna decided_. I'll talk to Clement. _

She went to see the Chaplain in his office. He regarded her with big grave careful eyes.

"Whet's going on, Clement?" she demanded. "Whet do you know?"

He sighed.

"More than I can tell for the moment" he sighed. "I'm so sorry, Johanna. A vow of silence applies. The price for my breaking it is the life of Ruth, and she is my sister."

Johanna realised he was hinting at something, trying to tell her without breaking a promise.

"Somebody is out to kill me, yesno?" she demanded. "Just nod."

The chaplain nodded once, imperceptibly.

"It's somebody close to the Kwa'Zulu Embassy?"

Clement neither nodded nor shook his head, but his eyes flickered, for an instant.

"End Ruth dies if you tell me outright?"

Another nod.

Clement took a deep breath.

"Perhaps Holy Scripture will help." he said, leafing through a Testament. He opened it to a page, and offered it to Johanna.

"I always find the word of the God and the trials and struggles of those went before me to be helpful and informative in times of worry." he said, gnomically.

It was the story of a young man unjustly slain by attackers after his life, whose best friend had not been able to tell him because he feared the priests of a rival religion, who had intimidated him into silence. While Blind Io had taken vengeance on the priests of evil and welcomed the young man of virtue into Heaven, his family and friends still mourned for his passing.

Johanna thought she understood.

"It's those bleddy witch-doctors, isn't it!" she fumed.

"I never said that." Clement advised her. "But do be careful, These people wield power. That includes genuine magical ability."

"Well, I know a man…" she reflected. Was it fair to drag Ponder into this? She'd have to get the Librarian again. What did the University know about Howondalandian magic users?

"Thenk you, Clement, I'm sorry you weren't able to help." She loudly said for the benefit of whoever might be listening, as she opened the door and left.

"The blessing of the God be upon you and His light shines on the dark path you walk!" Clement said, ritually. She smiled, and left.

She had been relieved of classroom duty for the day, and she went back to her rooms, intending to make a start on the van der Post books.

_What's this? Copies of an old magazine, cheaply produced. Edited by Laurens van der Post and others. In Vondalaans, too. _

"_Voorslag". Whiplash. The journal of the Howondalandian National Conference. Who on Disc are they? _

"We seek a new understanding for Howondaland. Not the severed states of the United Republic set in mutual blind hatred and fear against Kwa'Zululand. We seek unity in plurality, the full equality under the law of its black and white citizens, a truly united Howondalandian Republic setting the past behind it and overthrowing the corruption of both the Boor state and the nepotism of the Paramount Royal House…"

Johanna instinctively looked back over her shoulder for the spy from BOSS. _Ag, this was strong stuff! _Then she realised the spy from BOSS was inside her own head, and made a mighty effort to throw him out.

She read enough to start creating a mental image of van der Post, and to assure herself that this was an underground magazine strictly banned in her own country, possession of which incurred a heavy fine or even prison. One magazine even had the heavy stamp of BOSS on the cover, declaring it forbidden. She wondered how the University library got hold of such things.

Then she pushed the dangerous and seditious utopian scribbling to one side, and opened a book on the ritual magic of the Zulu peoples.

She was still reading when her friend Joan Sanderson-Reeves, a very senior Assassin who sat on the Dark Council, came to see her. She took in the shattered window with a glance.

"Can't have that, m'dear. We're getting a man round to fix it for you!"

"Thenks. " Johanna said.

Joan sat opposite her, and lowered her voice.

"Just come from a Council meeting" she said. " I can't tell you everything, but the word is that people at the Zulu embassy want your head on a pole."

"I'd gethered thet."

"Downey also had people coming round this morning trying to take out a contract on _you_, damn cheek! And on Sergeant Angua!"

Johanna sat up.

"Do we know who?"

"It was an intermediary. He's being discreetly followed to see who he meets. Oh, we turned down both contracts, naturally."

Johanna must have looked sceptical.

"Look, m'dear, if we'd _accepted_ a contract on you, then we'd have to respect the confidentiality of the client and you wouldn't even know! Business is business, d'y'see? The Guild would have taken the point of view that you're a big girl and you have a fighting chance against another Assassin."

Johanna nodded.

"And as for the other one, Downey said he could go a long way without Vimes getting intense because we were targeting one of his officers. So Angua's safe too. From us, that is."

Something occurred to Johanna.

"Whet would my price have been?"

Joan laughed.

Fifty thousand. And a hundred thousand for the werewolf. Difficulty of completion, you see."

"Bleddy cheek! I'm worth _et least_ seventy-five thousand!"

"I wouldn't go that high, m'dear."

Joan leant forward.

One or two people have gone out on assignments. Just to demonstrate that when the Guild is annoyed, the world had better duck. We'll hear more later. But do you need help?"

"Thenks, Joan. I do eppreciate thet. But I'll cell you."

"As you wish. Now hospitality isn't what it was, is it? You've not offered an old lady a cup of tea!"

Sighing, Johanna went to ground herself in normal things, like making a cup of tea. Kaffe and Crème went bounding into the room, barking and welcoming the newcomer.

"Oh, I say! What lovely lovely dogs!" Joan enthused.

* * *

The slightly wounded operatives laid up in the den, waiting for their injuries to heal. In common with other magically enhanced creatures, injuries and wounds healed up spectacularly fast. Lying on his face, N'Kima tried to imagine his torn buttock healing still quicker, the missing flesh regranulating and closing over. Dancing last night had been agony and he feared the wound had re-opened, but he had forced himself, with iron will, to turn in a faultless performance.

_That bloody dog! The intelligence briefing hadn't told him the whites had imported lion dogs. The fat old soldier on his own would have beeen no match for him. Leaving that body torn and broken would have sent out the right message, that none were safe in their beds while the Leopard Society ran with the moon!_

He looked across to Elizabeth N'Kimbi, who had taken a crossbow bolt last night in the abortive raid on the Guild. She smiled back, wanly. Her wound too was healing with magically enhanced speed.

_Whatever the witch-finder did to speed things still further, it's working. Either the spell or the powder he sprinkled into the wound. _

Emmanuel N'Juri sat and sneered down his nose. He touched the fetish around his neck with reverence. It really worked! The Witch-Finder had assured him that it would ward off arrows and crossbow bolts. The two that had hit him last night had left marks, it was true, but had not penetrated all the way through. Just two bleeding craters, open to the air, marked where they had hit.

He looked out of the window, towards the green hill topped by a new tower, built in the ugly angular square style these barbarians preferred.

_Tonight we will run there, _he decided. _Gentle exercise to help the wounds heal. A hunt, perhaps, for the small prey, the...jerboa..jack rat....rabbits, that abound there. We have perhaps pushed our luck lately. But who was to know that woman would fool the surveillance team by pretending to return to the Guild? We attacked a place where she wasn't, and made fools of ourselves. How well defended is the University? We will test their defences next. If the Smith-Rhodes woman is there, and she is there often with her fool of a Wizard, we might be lucky. _He thought of romance, or at least of sex. _And I have unfinished business with a girl myself. _He thought of Ruth, and his tongue flickered over his pointed canines.

* * *

From an upper floor in the square, angular, and unlovely Tump Tower, licenced Assassin Alice Band sized up the distance to the Kwa'Zulu Embassy. Brookless Lane was over a quarter of a mile away, but from this height, the arrow would fall easily towards its target.

Downey had pulled in favours with the Tump Tower management to get her into position. She intended to be quick, as the presence of an Assassin in the building was un-nerving the people who worked here. Easily the Guild's best archer, she took another sighting through the telescopic sights.

_Ah. Perfect! _Nocking, and drawing back the bow to its full extent, she loosed two arrows, with messages attached, in quick succession. Then she was dismantling and packing the bow into its case, and resuming her disguise as a lowly clerical worker to whom few would give a second glance. She got into the new lift, treating it with suspicion.

"What floor, darlin'?" squeaked the gate-imp.

"Ground"

The imp nodded at the huge troll, who was working a windlass which raised or lowered the lift car.

"Ground, Charlie!"

"Ground it is!"

Alice frowned.

"Will you stop doing that?" she asked.

"Sorry, miss" said the imp, who had produced an elim whistle. **(2)**

"Research indicates that passengers in the new Stronginthearm lift and elevator system prefer to hear soothing light music as they ascend or descend…"

"Well, I don't" said Alice, firmly.

She was relieved to hit ground again.

"Thank you for choosing to use the new Stronginthearm lift and.."

"Shut up."

_That bloody lift was creaking and rattling… does the operating troll really need to be inside the cab with you? _

Then she was out, using the door on the blind side from view from the Embassy, and picking up her horse again for a swift return to the Guild. She paid the urchins who had offered to mind her horse (she had no fear of it being stolen: the kids were streetwise enough to know she was an Assassin) and set off back to the Guild to report in.

_Mission accomplished._

* * *

The arrow landed, as agreed, within a few feet of the Witch-Finder M'Sekela as he took the afternoon sun in the Embassy garden. As he bent to pick it up, a second arrow, fired for emphasis, landed three feet away. Both black arrows carried he inscription in elegant white enamel

_The Guild of Assassins. Where style counts. _

The first message, written in Morporkian and Zulu, on Guild headed paper, read

**WE ARE DISPLEASED.**

The second read

**We are not joking. You have been warned. Do you wish to send the perpetrators home in disgrace now, or do we have to terminate their diplomatic accreditations? **

M'sekela, who was illiterate, took both arrows and messages in to the Ambassador, who shuddered.

"And on top of everything else, the Assassins' Guild are demonstrating how easy it is to breach our defences. Thank you _so_ much! "

M'sekela, who didn't understand mordant sarcasm, bowed himself out.

* * *

**(1) **Yes, as some of you have noticed, there is a steak of homage to the Piemburg farces of master humorist Tom Sharpe which runs through these stories. In Sharpe's comic novels of South Africa, Liutnant Verkramp is the paranoid, half-insane, BOSS section head in the semi-fictitious town of, er, Piemburg (Pietermauritzberg) . A "_gogga_" is apparently any species of large, revolting, slimy, possibly poisonous, insect.

For the adventures of the Piemburg Police force, I reccomend _**Riotous Assembly**_and _**Indecent Exposure, **_by Tom Sharpe.

**(2) **Like a penny whistle, only much, much smaller.


	8. Big Game Hunting

_**Whys and "weres" – c8**_

The ambassador and his wife were genuinely pleased to see their niece, who had gone to the kennels behind the Embassy first to check on the condition of the wounded dog. Johanna had been pleased to see Rambou's temperature was down, and the wound site felt normally warm without any rigidity of the tissues. Despite the conical collar she had fitted to prevent him worrying at the stitches, which always looks a little bit comical on an animal, Rambou was lively and conscious and pleased to see her.

"Well done, Franz!" she said to the young konstabel who had assisted her. "I believe he'll live!"

Franz Huik smiled, bashfully.

"It was your work, miss." he said. "You discovered what I missed."

"_Ja_", she said, thoughtfully, "But I was operating in daylight at leisure. You were working alone by candlelight while the Embassy was under attack. You did well to save his life till the morning!"

Sergeant deKok beamed at them both.

"I owe both of you." he said. "Miss, the boy here says you teach animal medicine at the Zoo?"

"Well, I would not say I _teach_" she said. "I'm still learning. But zoo animals sometimes become sick and require practical healing. When I can I explain to others what I am doing and why, so they absorb a little teaching. I believe Konstabel Huik here could benefit from detached service at the Zoo for one or two days a week. It would make him a better animal doctor and of more use to you in his role here."

_He isn't built for the military_, she thought. _A thin weedy little chap with glasses. He opted to do his National Service in the police force rather than the military. Because his Morporkian is very good and he has an affinity for dogs, he was posted here as an embassy guard. He must find living among the macho thugs and men's men to be wearying. _

"It's your lucky day, Huikie!" deKok said, kindly. "Make your arrangements with the lady here, and I'll give you the local leave."

_I wonder if he'll return Home when his time's served, now that he's seen Ankh-Morpork? _

Huik's face lit up. Johanna smiled at him, feeling pleased she'd done a little good. _And possibly recruited a first-class zookeeper. Ag, they can't __**all**__ be golems. _

She wondered again about the confused report from Gritchlow, who as senior keeper was responsible for staff administration.

_One leopard too many? I'll have to see it for myself. _She wondered if it tied in to the current case. It had too many unconnected dangling loose ends for her liking.

"A special constable?" Aunt Frijda queried, with a raised eyebrow. "I'm not denying that we don't need a Watch, and Commander Vimes is a good neighbour to us, but isn't that rather _beneath_ you, Johanna?"

"In the circumstances, Aunt, I couldn't say no." she replied, politely. "In any case, my patrol partner tonight isn't exactly redneck white trash. Angua is first in line to succeed to a Grafinate in Überwald. In old Sto Kerrig, that was a _Margrav. _I believe the equivalent in the social order here is a Marquess, in Morporkian. Ranks higher than a Lady and slightly lower than a Duchess. And as for Sally von Humpeding. I would not have stopped reciting her titles by tomorrow breakfast!"

"And of course there are the strange rumours surrounding Captain Carrot." her uncle said, thoughtfully. "Whatever he is, he is most assuredly not of the lowest social class!"

"You've made your point." Frijda said, crossly She still hadn't quite forgiven her husband for ogling the underdressed kaffir girls so openly in That Place, and had given him, if not Hell, then Purgatory, for it. Pieter had held his peace, but given the opportunity, couldn't resist a snipe back when offered one.

A black waiter stepped forward to refill Johanna's glass. Reflexively, she said "thank you", which drew the glance of one of the other diners.

_Don't provoke him, Johanna. You need his good graces tonight, and in any case, the man is dangerous. Ag, is there something wrong with his glands, the way his eyes bulge when he stares? _

"I'm sorry, Liutnant Verkramp. That's a local affectation my niece picked up from living in this city." said Aunt Frijda, quickly.

"Common courtesy doesn't hurt. I find it gets you better service if you're polite to the staff!" Johanna said.

"To _white_ staff, certainly." said the BOSS section chief, in his clipped, odd, tone.

"Tell me about the attack on the Guild of Assassins." her uncle said, changing the subject deftly. "I can't help thinking whoever did that must be tired of life."

Johanna told the story much as she'd heard it, making her aunt gasp in horror.

"First the attack on us, and now on _you_!" she said, shocked. "Is it to do with your joining their police force?"

"Indirectly, I think. Commander Vimes chose to activate me as a Detective–Constable to use my skills and knowledge in the leopard case. It may be the case that those behind it believe I am a threat to them and wish to see me eliminated. Strangely enough, they also attempted to take out a Guild contract on Sergeant Angua."

"The werewolf…" mused her uncle. "What knowledge might _she_ have that could be dangerous to our shadowy adversaries?"

"Not so shadowy!" asserted Verkramp, spitting fragments of his dinner. The others tried to conceal their distaste.

"Ambassador, we _know_ it is the Zulus. I ask you again to let me activate Operation Whiplash!"

Pieter van der Graaf stared at the secret service man.

"_No_, Liutnant. Not a bloody chance. I'm not having your men playing cloak and dagger games all over this City, randomly killing black people you think are a threat to the Staadt. Firstly, there are people here who do the cloak and dagger game far better than us and there are far more of them. The Guild of Assassins takes a dim view of unlicenced killing in their city. If only because they believe they should get first refusal on the contract. Vimes' Watch is also very good. And I am not making this city a battleground for our own domestic problems. Lord Vetinari has the right to remove accreditation for diplomats who make trouble in his City and pack them off home in disgrace. If the Zulus wish to _begin_ such a war, let the Patrician's eye pass over us as the injured party, and fall on their Embassy on Brookless Lane. The moral victory would be beneficial for us, and the approbrium falls on them. A sympathetic editorial in the Times, for once. Amazing how that newspaper shapes opinion far more effectively than victory in a war! Besides, I'm three years away from retirement and I value my pension!"

_That's one for Downey, _Johanna thought. _But then, he's worked out that if my people are provoked enough, they will retaliate. Is this what it's all for, to create a flashpoint that starts a war? And my family live too near the Border!_

Verkramp fell into sullen silence. Johanna decided to sweeten him.

"Later, Liutnant Verkramp, I would value your opinion on my personal woes. Is it in order to request to see your files on individuals at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy?"

"Such things may be possible, _ja_." the BOSS head agreed, cautiously.

Johanna nodded, and turned back to her uncle.

"In pursuing this case as a Special Constable, my inquiries brought up the name of an organisation I'd never heard of before, called the Howondalandian National Congress." she said. "Uncle Piet, who are they?"

From the way her uncle and the secret policeman both sat up straight and drew breath, she knew she was on to something.

"They're a miniscule splinter group with extreme opinions." her uncle said, dismissively.

"Subversives!" said Verkramp.

"They had a brief vogue among the university liberal thinkers thirty or forty years ago, but they've either argued among themselves, been imprisoned and rehabilitated, or else emigrated, exiled or fled to Kwa'zululand". Uncle Piet added.

"They got poor Laurens at Witwatersrand. I was reading for politics, philosophy and economics with a view to joining the Diplomatic Service. My friend Laurens van der Post**(1)**– I recall you asked about him before? – was a brilliant but erratic individual who opened his mind to all the wrong ideas, I'm sorry to say. We all warned him he was headed for trouble, but he had to fall in with the extremists who wanted a Utopia where White and Black Howondaland merged into some sort of fantasy of equality. No longer Zululand, no longer the Staadt, but some sort of super-republic combining both. Laurens was reading in anthropology and ethnology, and that led him to the belief of complete equality between the races."

"We closed the anthropology department down at that University." boasted Verkramp. "It bred subversives!"

"He spent so much time with the blacks." said Aunt Frijda. "There were terrible rumours".

"He put this scurrilous pamphlet out. It was closed down and he was imprisoned. He exiled himself first to Kwa'Zululand where he carried on researching and agitating for the HNC. Then he made the mistake of antagonising the witchdoctors. He was allowed to witness some sort of ritual where, allegedly, people were put through ordeals to prove their worth, then blessed by the Gods with the power to turn into leopards at will."

Johanna suddenly became more attentive.

"Now I know there's magic in this world, and witches, wizards, witch-doctors, and so on, are Nature's way of venting it safely. But as a rational man, I suspect the drugs fed to the blacks during this ceremony made them _think_ they'd turned into animals. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway, he made the error of writing up this secret ritual, that he'd been allowed to watch on sufferance and strict confidence, and releasing it in his latest book on native ritual beliefs. So when the Witch-Finders went pointing the bones at him, he had to escape in a hurry. I believe he currently scratches out a penniless and friendless existence in Quirm, poor fellow."

"Uncle. Do you have a copy of this book?" she asked, excited. It would shorten her reading time, and her intuition was flashing a very large beacon at her.

_This is it! Why do people deny the truth when it's there, right in front of them?_

"Books by a known subversive? In an embassy library?" snorted Verkramp.

The ambassador held up a hand.

"So far as I know, it was never on the prohibited list." he said. "No, I don't have a copy. But it was called "_Secret rituals of the Kwa'Zulu and Matabele jungle clans"_, or something similar. "

Johanna recalled a book like this in the stack the Librarian had found for her. She itched to be home.

"Thank you, uncle. This will help the investigation enormously."

Her uncle nodded.

"I believe there is a remnant of the original HNC living in exile in this city" he said. "They're not important or dangerous, but I do feel sorry for them. Imagine being exiled twice over. Having to live in a foreign cold damp city, and unable to be a part of a larger expatriot family that is mutually supportive of each other, in the main. Seeing the greater number of White Howondalandians living in this city who rightly shun them for their foolish beliefs, and only having each other for company. It must be like life imprisonment. If they came to me and swore to renounce their silliness and vow to obey our country's constitution and laws, I could arrange pardon and repatriation for them. We are not unreasonable. But they will not. What can you do?"

Johanna's memory was again jogged.

"These exiled subversives. Would one be a woman in her fifties, grey-haired, medium build, oval face with falling chin, grey eyes, tight pursed mouth…"

"You are describing one known to us." Verkramp said. "In what circumstances did you encounter her?"

Johanna told of being followed out of the Guild and how she'd identified her followers. _Kak. I've given the poor woman a death sentence. That was not my intention. _

"Collaboration with the enemy." The BOSS man said. "Normally the death sentence applies".

"We don't know for sure if she was working for the Kwa'Zulu." Johanna reminded him.

"It appears clear-cut to me. I'll add it to her record. You, miss Smith-Rhodes, will of course sign the witness statement."

"A great pity." Her uncle sighed. "I knew her at university. A brilliant mind and a great beauty. But she had to go listening to the wrong people".

* * *

Johanna entered the BOSS offices, a well protected part of an upper floor at the Embassy which was normally locked off from unauthorised personnel, with the usual repressed shudder. An irrational feeling passed over her, as Verkramp routinely locked the security door behind him, that once in, she would never be allowed out again.

Verkramp looked at her as if he was reading her thoughts. She remembered her Assassin training, and told herself that secret policemen the world over capitalised on the instant feeling of guilt, of "_what do they know about me_?", that their very presence instilled in the population.

_It was apparently like this in Ankh-Morpork in the old days, _she reminded herself. _Vimes wants to use me as a Special in the Cable Street Particulars. Those stories he told about the old CSP, when Captain Swing was in charge. Ag!_

She wondered if Findthee Swing would have recognised Verkramp as a spiritual cousin. Apparently he'd had the same sort of warped appearance and a peculiar way of speaking, too.

Verkramp sat down at a desk, took his ease, and steepled his fingers. He deliberately did not offer her a seat.

_Vetinari-light. But he has a certain style. _

"Now please explain why you wished to see me, Miss Smith-Rhodes."

She looked the ridiculous – but dangerous – little man in the eye.

"As you know, liutnant, there have been a spate of mysterious attacks in the City over the past few nights. As an Assassin, I am keen to discover who targeted the Guild last night. As a special detective constable of the Watch, I am charged with participating in the ongoing investigation into several murders. "

_Ag, I'm even beginning to talk like a policewoman, in the same plodding ponderous methodical manner!_

"You are investigating an attack on this Embassy, against all diplomatic and internationally recognised protocol. I believe all these things are fundamentally inter-related, and we can help each other's investigations."

Verkramp nodded.

"As a loyal citizen of the Republic, your information will be freely volunteered to me without condition."

"I would volunteer it more freely if you would open your files to me, liutnant. I am especially interested in what you know about a third secretary at the Kwa'Zulu embassy, called Emmanuel N'Juri."

_Ag, the things we do for our friends, _she thought.

Verkramp considered this. Then he rang a bell on his desk. A BOSS clerk answered the summons.

"Fetch me the file on N'juri, E." he ordered. Then he added "No, let's be thorough. Bring me the files on the new members of staff at the Kwa'Zulu embassy. The whole draft who arrived last September. By all accounts they are closely associated."

Johanna eventually had four names and biographies.

"Liutnant" she said. All four are associated with something called the Leopard Society. What is this?"

Vekramp shrugged.

"We believe it to be a secret society within the Kwa'Zulu armed forces and higher echelons of society. They take their orders directly from the College of Witch-Finders and are loyal to them. We are at present unsure of their purpose, but we suspect them to be a fanatical strike force, an army within an army, who are being recruited to act as loyal muscle to serve the witch-doctors. These four at their Embassy we have been watching. They have no clear diplomatic purpose, although the two women are graced by the rank of cultural attaché. Their _dancing_, if you can call it that, may well be just a front for more sinister activities.

"They may be a Zulu imitation of the Bureau, as the other blacks there are clearly wary of them and intimidated by them. "Leopard Society", we believe, is just a metaphor, a name, signifying that they will strike out of the night like the leopard. Fanatics. Their presence in this city worries us. I'm pleased your information confirms what we suspect. "

Vekramp smiled.

"Thank you for your information. It is appreciated. You may leave."

Trying not to show her relief, Johanna got up to go. Then she paused.

"One last thing. You all seemed to know the woman who was trailing me the other night. I do not. May I ask her name?"

"A fair request. She is Esther Coetzee, formerly of Bloemfontein. A brilliant intellectual and one the Staadt had high hopes for. But intellectuals are _dangerous_. She threw her lot in with the blacks and was caught passing Staadt secrets to Zulu spies. The president, alas, chose clemency, and spared her the death sentence. But she was exiled on icompletion of a long prison term. She lives in some reduced circumstances in the Dolly Sisters area. A miserable exile life." Verkramp added, with gloating satisfaction. "Now is that everything? "

Johanna nodded, remembering the name. Escorted out by a BOSS underling, she passed banks of filing cabinets. Lots of filing cabinets. She was now certain there was one in the drawer marked "S" with her name on it. She wondered what BOSS had on her. It was not a comforting thought.

* * *

It was too late to get back to the Guild and read up on what van der Post had to say about the Leopard Society. She had brought a bag with her containing the equipment she needed for Watch duty, and changed in a bedroom provided by her aunt. There was a knock on the door.

"_Wie's daar?"_ she called, automatically.

A black maidservant entered.

"Please, baas-lady. The baas-lady Frijda told me to come to you and offer you help in dressing, should you need it."

Johanna nodded. _Just_ like Auntie Frijda. Her Assassin senses kicked in. _Trust nobody._

"Step forward" she commanded. "Put your hands where I can see them. Thank you. Now will you permit?"

She lightly frisked the girl for weapons. When she was satisfied that she was the Bantu housemaid she seemed to be, Johanna stepped back.

"I apologise for the intrusion on your person." she said. "But there has been one attempt on my life this week. I had to be sure."

The girl looked surprised for a second, then nodded submissively.

To give the girl a light duty to do, Johanna had her give her enamelled and personally tailored black armour a final polish.

As she got into the Watch tunic and leather skirt that was standard issue to Watchwomen, she talked to the maid.

"We know you are kin to the Ambassador." the girl said. "Whenever you stay here, there is competition to serve you, as you are kind and polite and very generous."

Johanna nodded. It was another aspect of her attitude to servants that caused mild friction with her Aunt.

"I really wish you wouldn't give them money in the morning when you stay here overnight." Aunt Frijda had complained. "It spoils them!"

Johanna had pointed out, quite reasonably, that were she to stay at a grand house such as the Rusts or the Eorles or the Venturis, she would be allocated a personal maidservant, and it was positively _expected_ that you tipped your servant at the end of the stay in recognition of good service. It shouldn't be any different here.

Aunt Frijda had rolled her eyes, and fired the second bolt in her crossbow.

"And… I know you're an Assassin. We make allowances. But leaving all those weapons out at night where the servants can reach them?"

"They wouldn't _dare_." Johanna reassured her. "Anyway, a weapon you don't know how to use is useless. Which is why the Staadt prohibits most blacks to train in weapon-use."

_I really shouldn't get so much pleasure out of baiting my aunt, _she thought_. Frijda's a decent old girl. And I'd better not tell her what Betty said. _

Johanna had asked her maid Betty, semi-seriously, whether she would pick up one of her knives left on the dressing table at night, and try to stab her with it. Betty had smiled, taken the risk, and said "Oh no, baas-lady. You always say "please" and "thank you" and you treat us well. None of us would ever try to stab _you_."

Johanna smiled, and asked tonight's maid about her home and family back in the township, about her hopes and ambitions for the future. Flattered by the interest, she added to Johanna's store of knowledge about everyday black life at Home while she donned the armour and checked her weapons.

She wore her machete in favour of the issue Watch sword – cheap metal and blunted too easily- with her dagger and whip on the other side. A pouch of spare crossbow bolts, Guild issue, hung at her belt. A basic field medicine kit, compact and to her own specifications, was in the opposite pouch. Her lightweight bespoke armour consisted of greaves to protect her lower legs – in the short skirt she didn't feel so _exposed _then - a front and back; and vambraces protecting both forearms. A standard Watch helmet completed the assembly, about the only part of Watch issue armour she had retained. It had dangling cheek-guards in the old Latatian manner that offered protection to her face, but she did not lace them together under her chin. That could be fatal and offer an opponent a gift garrotting cord. Her Watch badge fitted to the breastplate, she took care to secure her Guild badge inobtrusively out of sight, where she could use it to identify herself should she need to. Mr Vimes did not approve of her wearing it visibly while on muster. She wore short boots rather than sandals, of Assassin design, within which were concealed a few additional surprises.

Checking herself in a mirror, she slung her personal crossbow over her shoulder, and smiled happily. She was twenty-nine, in a profession she loved, happily going steady with a good man, and just about to walk into unknown danger for no pay.

It made her feel really _alive._ She tipped the maid with fifty pence, and went out to call a cab to get her to the Yard in time for the shift-change.

* * *

Matron Igorina and the Watch Igor took turns checking out the blood samples retrieved from the Embassy and the Guild through one of the new-fangled _looking at very small things indeed, or reversed telescope _machines, invented by Leonard of Quirm. They conferred, in low voices. Cheery Littlebottom was invited to look, but apart from recognising blood cells of various types, she could make no further sense of it.

"Well?" she said, impatiently.

Igorina turned to her.

"Sample one, that retrieved from the Embassy, is mingled with canine blood, which we believe to be that of the dog that was injured. I have iconographed it for the evidence file.

"Sample Two is pure. There's no doubt about it. It is entirely human blood. No trace of leopard blood cells anywhere."

Cheery looked perplexed.

"But when Mr Maroon awoke this afternoon, he said he saw recognisable human shapes climbing down the wall of the Guild. He didn't see where they went, but he is adamant he was charged and bowled over by three big cats."

He had hit his head quite heavily on the way down, and would have deeply-gouged scars from a mauling inflicted in passing. He had been coherent and in command of his own mind: he had described two spotted golden leopards race past him without stopping, one of which was bleeding from the chest, but the third had been completely black and had gone out of its way to knock him over and inflict injury. He had noticed, as it bore him down, that it was oozing blood from flesh wounds in the shoulder, and was very, very, angry, all flattened ears, hissing scream, and them _teeth_…

"Perhaps some sort of animal handler?" Igor proposed. They used the leopards to make a diversion, and followed discreetly while all eyes were elsewhere?"

"Perhaps" said Cheery, doubtfully. She wished she knew more about animal habits.

"We can also identify the suspects as Black Howondalandian" Igorina added.

Cheery nodded: that fitted the description, of IC3's.**(2)**

"How?" she asked.

"The blood we're looking at has sickle cells in it." Igorina explained. "These are only found in people of Howondalandian origin. It means the carrier has a blood deformity that will kill them within twenty years."

Cheery nodded. It was something to tell Mr Vimes.

* * *

Johanna made it to the Muster.

Aware heads were turning at the presence of the striking Assassin-Constable, she shared a nod with Angua and sat down to listen to the briefing.

Squads were to patrol normally around the city, but the majority would be deployed in areas of known leopard activity, especially the Shades, with orders to look out for the elusive big cats. If nothing else, a massive show of force would deter the local and make them keep their heads down. A token squad would patrol Filigree Street and Widdershins Broadway down to Baker Street, as the bloody Assassins… apologies, Miss Smith-Rhodes – would be out in force patrolling their own turf and he wanted somebody to keep an eye on the bugg.. _them_… outside their Guild.

Vimes broke off.

"Special Constable Hancock, what the heck is _that_?"

Andy Hancock saluted, enthusiastically.

"Trident and a weighted net, sir. The old Latatians used them for leopard-hunting!"

Johanna winced and covered her eyes.

"Well you know best. Just stay away from Special Constable Piggle. The poor man's still recovering from those Agatean Throwing Stars you used, when we were hunting the Kicklebury Street Ninja."**(3)**

"A special operation is to take place in the area of the Tump employing Sergeant von Überwald and Special Detective-Constable Smith-Rhodes. They will be covertly inserted under conditions of secrecy, or as near as we can get. There will be a back-up squad under Captain Carrot, based in the Tump Tower.

"Duty sergeant in the Yard will be Sergeant Colon. Have a good night, ladies and gentlemen, and happy hunting!"

Johanna heard the plan, and asked for one small detour. She wanted to see the scene of the latest murder for herself to see if she could ad anything the Watch had missed. Well aware of her animal knowledge, Vimes was not offended and authorised the trip.

"Besides, Mr Vimes, if enyone is following me – end I would like you to be eware of the possibility – this will ect es misdirection es to our main purpose tonight."

"Who's following you?"

Johanna explained about the previous night, and said she had positively identified one of her tails. She gave details of Esther Coetzee.

Vimes nodded.

"As long as that little turd at your embassy isn't setting you up to use me as a patsy to arrest one of his political suspects." he warned her. "I wouldn't put it past him. If it wasn't for the fact he must have been five or six – and _such_ a sweet little child, I'm sure – when Findthee Swing died, I'd book him for reincarnating with malice aforethought."

A closed police van took them to the scene of crime. Johanna looked around methodically but could find no further evidence.

"It is typical of leopards to dreg their dead prey into a high place." she said. "Trees are favoured, but rocky cregs end outcrops hev been observed. Otherwise, hyenas, which are more powerful peck enimels, will drive off the leopard end steal the prey."

Angua and Vimes listened.

"Whet is not typical is thet they hunted es a peck. Leopards ere not peck enimels. They hunt solo, except when they ere raising cubs."

There was a shuffling in the dark nearby to them. They moved to the sound, Angua and Johanna drawing swords. They relaxed as they heard a faint "Buggrit!"

"Here, miss policewoman!" said a low voice. "I got information on them leopards you're looking for. Twenty dollars buys it!"

"Come forward!" Johanna commanded. Something about the harmonics of her voice compelled obedience. Slowly, reluctantly, Gaspode slunk out of the dark.

"How do I know you ere not going to tell me eny old rubbish in return for the money?" Johanna demanded.

"It's OK, Johanna. This is Gaspode. When he isn't mucking you around, he's a reliable informant." Angua said.

"This girl's good." Gaspode said, cocking an ear towards Johanna. "Most people just don't believe a dog can talk. She believes the evidence of her own ears. "

"I'm trained to" she said, curtly. "End I've seen you before. You're that mutt who hengs eround the beck kitchen door of the Guild on mixed grill night, yesno?"

"Whoops…" said Gaspode, who had just realised what stylish personally tailored jet-black armour meant. Turning to run for it, he found Angua standing just behind him. She delivered a low werewolf growl that said "don't even think it".

Gaspode laughed, nervously.

"Er… can I be allowed to rephrase my request?"

"Give us the information _first_, Gaspode. Then _I'll_ decide what it's worth." Vimes said, lighting a cigar.

"Right y'are, your grace, sir. Er, some nights ago myself and my associate here was keeping our own business behind Monkey Street, when stone me, these three bloody great cats come up and starts on this poor inoffensive bloke trying to kip down on the other side of the street" Gaspode began.

"S'right. Buggrit." Said a voice in the shadows.

"Now me, I'll go for cats, its in yer bones, right? But I looked at these three and thought "not a bloody chance. Let's do one" We waited till they was occupied, if you sees what I mean, and then we skeddadled."

"Describe them" Johanna said.

"Two of them was golden brown with darker spots. I knew they wasn't pumas or jaguars, right, 'cos with them, there's a break in the circle around the spot, right? These was complete pale circles enclosing a darker core".

"Leopards." said Johanna. "And the third?"

"That's the funny thing, miss. The third was all black. Oh, there were spots there, if you knew where to look. But very dark grey ones. Charcoal grey, right? That's your…"

"Penther." Johana said. "A bleck panther. Running in a peck with leopards. This is making no sense. Penthers end leopards ere the same enimel, virtually, but they do not get along. A penther and a leopard do not shere the same range. The stronger usually drives out the weaker. And the penther is a vicious evil killer. If en enimel ever took pleasure in killing, it is the bleck penther!"

"That's what Maroon said. Two normal, one black." Vimes mused.

"And they _spoke_. Normal words but in some sort of heathen lingo. You don't see animals doing that very often!"

Gaspode paused. "Saving for me." He looked at Angua. "And of course you."

"Could you remember any words?"

Gaspode focused. The big black bugger called one of the others… Unkimble.. That's it. Unkimble."

"There's en Elizabeth N'Kimbl et the Kwa'Zulu Embessy" Johanna said, recalling the BOSS files. "She wes one of four who errived in September."

The three police officers stood in awed silence.

"September!" Vimes breathed. "When all this started bloody well happening!"

"And four of them. They counted no more than four leopards!" breathed Johanna.

"Diplomat. Won't be able to touch her. Just my bloody luck!" lamented Vimes.

"Are you trying to tell me they're some sort of…" demanded Angua. She seemed upset.

"Oh, wake up girl! Who put it into your head that you're the _only_ ones?" Gaspode demanded. Angua glared him into whimpering silence.

"Wait" said Vimes. "Is that all there is?"

"It's a bloody big _all_, Mr Vimes!" said Gaspode, recovering.

A voice from the shadows said

"Buggrit! Where's the _money_, copper? Millenium, hand and fish!"

Vimes reached into his cash-pouch. He pulled out four of the new five-dollar notes.

"Here you go, Ron. Try not to lose them!" he said.

Dangblast the bloody fnords! Thank you, Mr Vimes, you're a toff! Buggrit!"

"Don't insult me!" Vimes said, grinning, as the ill-assorted pair prepared to stumble into the night.

"One last question!" said Johanna. "Gespode, wherever did you learn those fects ebout leopards, pumas and jeguars?"

"You gets your education where you can, miss. Back of Chaim Bechayal's all night taxidermy when he's throwing the innards out. Sometimes a dog can't be choosy! You get to put your head round the door, see what he's working on. You learn a lot. Well, goodnight, miss. From Howondaland, are you? "

"However did you guess?"

"Oh, something in your voice. A touch of an …eccent…"

"Just don't come near _my_ dogs with fleas!"

Gaspode and Ron stumbled off.

Vimes said "Shall we drive, ladies? Moonrise is at ten." indicating the waiting van.

* * *

**(1). **Some explanation. Roundworld's Laurens van der Post(1906 – 1996**) **was in fact an intellectually maverick genius of South African birth. He did not go to university, but was a self-taught polymath. As a journalist in the 1930's, he co-founded a satirical magazine called _**Voorslag!**_ (Whiplash) which strongly opposed racial segregation and called for full racial equality in South Africa. This was closed down by the secret police. Imprisoned by the Japanese in WW2, he eventually returned to South Africa and pursued training as a psychologist. By now a more discreet opponent of apartheid, he spent years travelling the country and talking to and writing about its black peoples. In later life, he turned more to African magic and mysticism, holding a belief that African witchdoctors really could manipulate events an phenomena at will. Van Der Post even hinted that he believed in the existence of the African gods and nature spirits as living sentient entities, providing some thought-provoking anecdotal evidence. He became a personal guru to Prince Charles of Great Britain. He also influenced the early upbringing of his son Prince William. I have used him more or less "straight", the above pocket bio notwithstanding, as a larger than life character like this deserves a place on the Discworld.

**(2)** As footnoted elsewhere, this is the British police shorthand for ethnicities, which runs :-

IC1=white north European ;

IC2=white south European ;

IC3=black ;

IC4=Asian ;

IC5=Chinese, Japanese or other Far East Asian

IC6=Arabic or north African

There is an unofficial British police category IC7 , or _tantastic,_ denoting addicts to tanning shops who have that wholly un-natural orange glow to their skin.

In Ankh-Morpork, however, the scale continues:

IC7 – dwarf;

IC8 = troll;

IC9 = werewolf;

IC10 = vampire;

IC11 = gnome;

IC12 = golem;

IC13 = zombie;

IC14 = Elf;

IC15= other miscellaneous Undead;

IC16 = Nobby Nobbs.

**(3**) Later identified as Nigel Mullins of Dimwell, a thin and weedy youth who was addicted to imported Agatean _mangy _comic books, and had got his mum to make him the black pyjamas and matching hood. Complaints had been raised by local housewives getting ready for bed who had seen a black-clad figure looking in through the bedroom window, and Vimes had arrived just in time to prevent a beating being administered by enraged husbands.

I'm sure the character of Findthee Swing in _**Night Watch **_was based on Tom Sharpe's creation of Liutnant Verkramp. There are many odd similarities.


	9. As Above, So Below

Whys and "weres" – c9

"Consternation and division in Dunmanifestin tonight, as Bast, the Cat-Headed Goddess of Cats, is up to her old tricks again! She might try to look sweet and innocent and divine, but there is no denying she is the leading suspect, after the semi-decomposed body of the Mouse God Micki was found rotting under the bed of ever-popular wine god Bibulous!

" Meanwhile, Throth, the Dog-Headed God of Dogs, very definitely isn't a popular deity tonight after he irritated the Fourecksian God of Outdoor Catering, Barbi, by pissing up his billabong. The Great Blind Io tried whacking Throth over the snout with a rolled-up prophecy and rubbing his nose in it, but it doesn't seem to have done a blind bit of good as the massed Gods are still petitioning him to get those bloody animals house-trained.

"And Bibulous has just awoken from a drunken stupor… oh yes, the wine god has seen the corpse of Micki, the Mouse God, and he is looking at it in drunken confusion and saying _I really don't remember eating that!. "_

Clement N'Effabl sat in the High Priest's palace, sipping his tea and listening with half-an-ear to Hughnon Ridcully, in an ecstatic trance, communicating what was currently the concern of the Disc's consensus deities. Mrs Ridcully sighed and whispered,

"I'm sure he only does it for me sometimes. He _knows_ I'm a fan! I hope there's an update on the Anoia-Cephut romance tonight! They've had hard times, those two!"

"Oh, and new arrivals at Dunmanifestin! The black Gods and goddesses of Howondaland have arrived, as long-established residents such as Astoria, Goddess of love, and Patina, Goddess of Wisdom, aew seen folding their arms and glaring and muttering things like _"There goes the neighbourhood!"_ and _"Property prices are going to go right down!" it s_eems like they're here to negotiate with Blind Io over demarcation and territory rights…will they overcome hostility and prejudice, and demonstrate that they are hard-working members of the divine community? Tune in again later! And now a word from our sponsors….."

Ridcully shook himself back into mundane consciousness.

"It's only the dratted commercials now. So what were you trying to say, Clement, lad?"

"I have a rather big problem, sir." Clement said, uncertainly. "I believe my faith is being tested."

"Go on." said Ridcully, attentive.

Clement sighed.

"Now there's the problem, sir…"

"You're not makin' sense, lad."

Clement had had a difficult time over the last day or so. The threat from the Witch-Finders was playing on his mind, and had indeed haunted his dreams. He had returned to his long-ago childhood in Kwa'Zululand, before being despatched by his father as the Chosen One to attend the Assassins' Guild school. He remembered the Royal Kraal's Witch-Finder, who had pointed the bones at old M'Buto and proclaimed he would die by the fifth day. M'Buto had so absolutely believed them that it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. He had ceased to eat, drank hardly anything, and retreated to his hut waiting for the fifth day. And in the eveningof the fifth day, he had died. **(1)**

Clement's adult mind, educated in the rational atmosphere of an Ankh-Morpork school, told him that this was nonsense, that M'Buto had died because he absolutely believed in the power of the Witch-Finders and had given in. Any power could be fought and resisted. That was part of the message of his Assassins' Guild education.

Yet as Johanna had discovered, questioning your beliefs is one thing. Some beliefs are so deeply ingrained and carry so much cultural and emotional weight that they are hard to shake off.

For Clement, one such was his childhood conditioning in the wisdom, power and strength of the Witch-Finders. His head refused to accept they could kill him at a distance for breaking their imposed silence. He had had the bones pointed at him. That gesture bypassed the rational head and lanced straight to the gut, to the very pit of ancestral memory, if you were a Zulu.

Thus his heart believed it virtually absolutely, despite his being a priest of Blind Io.

He chose to ask Ridcully to read the same scripture he'd given to Johanna, in the hope he would see the parallel.

"Oh, it's goin' to be Twenty Questions, is it?" Ridcully sighed. It was going to be a long night. He thought quickly.

The lad Clement had been perfectly OK earlier in the week, hadn't he. All this had set in after…

"Is it to do with the Zululand Embassy?"

_Nod._

"You heard, encountered or otherwise ran into something big. Something secret."

_Nod. _

"And somebody or bodies put the frighteners on you so you can't talk about it. You've been threatened or warned off in some way."

_Nod. _

Ridcully lit his pipe and took a very thoughtful toke. Clement had said he was havin' a crisis of faith, wasn't he? He certainly looked as if he's been through the grinder these last couple of days. He's scared, but I know he's got the heart of a lion in there. Ah.

"You're scared, but the fear is for somebody else. You get it wrong and somebody y' really care about dies or gets badly hurt. Just nod".

_Nod. _

Ridcully toked again. _And which bit of all this would shake his faith? There's somethin' else here. The lad's a Zulu. But he became a priest of Blind Io, which is not, strictly speakin', a Howondalandian religion. Offler's big down there, especially in Klatch, the Red Indians believe in a clutch of gods of their own, and the various black tribes have their…_

A memory stirred.

_We're intermediaries with our Gods. Sometimes the gods choose to channel power through us, or as an act of faith we can focus the God-power in the world. Some other god chucks a thunderbolt at me, the power of Blind Io wards it off.__**(2)**_

Hughnon sat bolt upright and realised where his train of thought was leading him.

_That's it! Some other bloody God, cheeky bugger, has thrown a thunderbolt, so to speak, at the lad Clement, and he doubts his ability, or the ability of Blind Io, to ward it off. What God could have got into his head and driven out his years of rational education and his seminary training in the name of Io? _

As Ridcully relaxed into thought, the God-Consciousness briefly descended on him again.

"…. with the goddess Petunia and a stick of celery. Meanwhile, the Howondalandian Gods have backed Blind Io into a corner and are demanding parity and permanent representation at Dunmanifestin. Glipzo, God of Retribution, and Malcolmex, God of Black Power, call Io a white segregationist and tell him that Mighty Whitey cannot keep the black peoples' Gods out forever, not with our millions of believers.

"The noise of debate gets so loud that those Gods playing the Game bang on the wall and shout at them to keep the bloody noise down, we're playing an intricate whodunit in Ankh Morpork here! Then, as one of the Howondalandian gods turns and looks at the board, recognition dawns.

"Excuse me aren't you Unkulunkolu? The half-man, half feral cat, tutelary god of the Kwa'Zulu?**(3) **Do you realise you've got a stake in this Game in Ankh-Morpork? The were-leopards causing havoc in the streets are yours, AND the Witch-Finders at the Zulu Embassy, it's just over here in the top-left of the board, look. Currently we're dicing for the soul of this priest…"

The transmission crackled, disintegrated into static, and faded. Ridcully jerked upright.

"Damn, dratted feedback loop again." said Ridcully. "You alright, lad?"

"Great Unkulunkolo!" said Clement, dreamily. His head slumped forward and he fell asleep.

Ridcully sprang forward, grabbed what he sought, and sprinkled Clement with holy water. Damn. This had started as a pastoral mentorin' session with one of his very best priests, and now it had turned into an _emergency_. He shouted for assistance, and two or three heavily-built security deacons ran in. **(4)**

"Emergency exorcism!" Ridcully demanded. "Get him to the Great Altar! Bloody _hurry,_ you men!"

The deacons caught Clement and lifted him easily, running towards the Temple. Ridcully was struggling into vestments and mitre and bellowing for his crook.

"Ah, thank you, dear!" he said to Mrs Ridcully. "Just orf to deal with this bloody cheeky foreign so-called God who's trampling on my lad here! I get the feeling Io needs me right now and I need Him. As above, so below, and all that!"

"Shall I keep your dinner in the oven?" said Mrs Ridcully.

"Please, m'dear. Exorcism always makes me peckish!" Hughnon Ridcully slapped the reassuring weight of the crook into his opposite palm a couple of times, much as his brother Mustrum was wont to do with his staff in similar circumstances. Well, a mild-minded reasonable fellow was being provoked beyond all reason, so this was perfectly _reasonable_. He then stomped off towards the Temple. It was time to do some righteous smiting in the name of Blind Io.

"_Rrrright, young fella-me-so-called-God. Let's see how strong you are thousands of miles away from yer own turf! You're a _**long **_way from home!" _said Hughnon Ridcully, meaningfully.

* * *

Johanna and Angua had been dropped off to quickly search the abandoned cemetery off Chrononhontonthologos Street. Angua led the way, Johanna backing her up, moving quickly and silently with her crossbow loaded and held at the high port. The search took twenty minutes.

"Nothing, mr Vimes." Angua said. "There was a very old trail as if they'd passed through here a time or two, but it peters out where things get busy again at the corner of Seven Sleepers."

"Some very old dry spoor behind a mausoleum. But nothing inside it." Johanna said. "They've been here, but not recently."

"Off to the Tump, then" said Vimes. "Hop back inside, ladies."

Johanna looked into the night. Was that a suspicion of grey, down there near the street sconce? She drew Vimes' attention to it.

"Looks like it" he said. "And there'll be two of them? OK, we go this way around till I see a Watch patrol."

Doubling back towards the river so as to misdirect their watchers, the unmarked police coach travelled slowly enough for Johanna to confirm identity and spot the second watcher, some four hundred yards away.

"That's all I need." Vimes said, nodding. A few hundred yards down the road, he picked up Constables Visit and Shoe and briefed them. The coach doubled back on itself again. It slowed almost to a halt as it drew level with a slim young black man who was trying to look inconspicuous. The next he knew, Visit was on him.

He turned to run, but walked into Reg Shoe.

"Don't you want to talk to the Watch?" Reg asked, cheerfully. "I'd call that suspicious!"

Meanwhile, Vimes and Angua, after a brief chase, ran down Esther Coetzee. They escorted her back to the coach. Vimes noted how she shared a glance with the black man.

"Detective-Constable Smith-Rhodes." he said. "Recognise these people?"

Johanna scrutinised them.

"Yes. They were following me the night the Guild wes ettecked!"

She looked into the older woman's face, wondering just how committed you would have to be to your ideals to be imprisoned, exiled, and end up living in poverty in a foreign city, dependent on a dole from an enemy embassy for performing low-level espionage for them, for spying on your own people. For a second she felt sorry for her, then remembered this woman had been ascertaining her whereabouts, so a team of foreign Assassins could come and kill her later.

"You are Esther Coetzee, formerly of Bloemfontein and Witwatersrand University." she said.

Esther Coetzee winced and hung her head.

"I'm not from BOSS." Johanna said, gently. "You're in better hends then thet. My edvice to you is to co-operate end tell Commender Vimes' people everything. It will go better for you in the end."

"I have diplomatic immunity!" the man insisted, straining ineffectually against Reg Shoe's zombie grip.

"Oh, yeah?" said Vimes, sneering. "We've searched you and you're not carrying any papers to say so. Nice try. We'll throw you in a cell anyway, and if you do belong to an Embassy, they'll probably notice you're missing and come looking."

"What have you arrested me for? What charge can possibly be brought against a man walking down the street minding his own business? "

"You know, it would have sounded better if you'd said that _before_ invoking diplomatic immunity" Vimes mused. "As for charges. Let's see. There's malicious loitering. There's aiding and abetting a crime. Oh, and conspiracy to murder as well as being accessories to the fact. We don't yet have stalking laws in this City, but you've displayed an unhealthy interest in Miss Smith-Rhodes here, and I suspect it isn't obsessive love that's made you follow her. You're not out to offer her a bunch of flowers that she doesn't want to accept, are you? Shortly after you two were seen following her, an attempt was made on her life. And tonight you're following her again. That interests me. Either way I've got you and you're both in a cell. The Patrician takes a dim view of foreign espionage services paying games on his streets, so his people might want a word with you. My police force doesn't use BOSS tactics any more, so you'll be unmolested in my cells."

Vimes paused.

"Can't say the same about Lord Vetinari's, though. OK constable, cuff 'em and get'em to the Yard. Send a clacks for a hurry-up wagon. Do it quickly.."

There was a fluttering in the air above them. Johanna unslung her crossbow and nocked and cocked. Then she relaxed. It was a broomstick, but the witch piloting it was recognisably in Watch uniform and helmet.

"Do you need assistance, sir?" the pilot asked, in a strong far-Überwaldean accent.

"Ah, officer Romanoff." Vimes said. "Zip across the city, would you, and turn out a hurry-up wagon from the Yard to collect these two? Quickly, I don't want any rescue attempts. Then straight back and resume station watching the… your assigned beat.".

"Sir". The broom soared smoothly and quickly towards the City centre. They watched it go.

"Now let's get onto the big draw for tonight!" Vimes said, with satisfaction.

* * *

Ruth N'Kweze too had had disturbed sleep, for exactly the same reasons as Clement. Not being able to tell what she knew about the conspiracy to kill Johanna and Angua was also eating at her: she felt like she was betraying both a friend and the Guild.

She had attempted to struggle to her job as a classroom assistant, that morning booked to assist Doctor Bellamy in a basic Natural History lesson where the pupils were to be tasked with carefully dissecting and identifying the parts of a flower.

One look at her, however, had led Davinia Bellamy to suspend the class and take Ruth to the school infirmary for the attentions of Matron Igorina.

Igorina had instantly recognised something was very wrong, and had ordered her to bed for observation. There are limits, however, to the best Igor's ability to recognise and deal with non-physical illness, although Igors as a clan have always recognised the fundamental link between the mind and the body After a frustrating session where Ruth either would not or could not respond to questions – it felt as if the closer she got to an answer, the more the girl closed up out of sheer terror – Ruth had been given a strong sedative and allowed to slide into forced unconsciousness.

Igorina frowned. She knew that if it did not involve cutting, replacing and stitching, it was an issue that passed out of her people's ability to deal with, except for a few commonsense observations about mental health largely derived from the clan's experience of working for very unstable people. How could you cut out, replace and stitch up something wrong in the mind? There was nothing to see, nothing in any of the cold-stores, jars, and gently bubbling tanks in her cellar that she could take out and tailor to the recipient. She wished Mr Nutt, with his knowledge of these things, was still in town.

Igors tend not to be psychic, except in a few very specific and well-defined ways, but she was feeling uneasy. _There's something else here…_ she wondered about getting Doctor Wading-Bird**(5)** of the new Guild of Psychiatrists down to consult, but knew he charged fifty dollars an hour, and anyway she suspected most of his patter was just highly specialised _boffo._

It was a quiet day: just one burns case in from Madame Deux-Épée's Metalwork class, where a student more intent on watching his teacher had managed to drop a hot sword-blank on his lower legs. **(6)**

She could afford to move her seat to where she could observe the girl rolling restlessly in her sleep, muttering in her native language, using the word _Unkulunkolo _over and again. Igorina wrote it down, as phonetically as she could. There were Zulu-Morporkian dictionaries in the library, she recalled. Given a spare few minutes she'd look it up.

Ruth's condition remained steady during the day.

Just before going out to the Embassy for dinner, Johanna Smith-Rhodes had dropped in to see how she was.

"You don't by any small chance know anything, Jo?" Igorina had asked. "I haven't seen anything like this before. Is it anything, you know, tropical? Howondalandian?"

"I honestly don't know." Johanna had said. "I saw Clement for a while. Something odd heppened to them both et the Zulu Embessy. I really believe Clement's been got et by something. He won't or cennot sey. I suspect those bleddy witch-doctors. They heve an _unhealthy _hold over their people."

"Hmmm." said Igorina, non-comitally, suspecting a bit of residual White Howondalandian prejudice about _natives_.

"Then that's _magic_. Which is outside my competence to deal with. She keeps repeating this word?"

Johanna deciphered it and compared it to her basic Zulu vocabulary.

"I think it's the name of one of their Gods." she said. "Not a nice one."

"Magic or religion." repeated Igorina. "So who are we going to call?"

Johanna considered. "I do not believe Ruth has a God of personal choice. She does not ettend eny Temples. If her condition hes not changed in the morning, I will esk Ponder for edvice. If she turns for the worse tonight, contect the University. There is _elweys _a specialist Wizard there who cen edvise."

* * *

The unmarked police coach dropped Angua and Johanna off on the Hubward side of the Tump, on the new stretch of road that had been regarded and improved to City standards to serve the Tump Tower, when the now-disgraced financier Reacher Gilt had decided to improve and redevelop the area. The tower had been built and a resurfaced road connected it to Pallant Street and Hopesprings. Otherwise, some very old roads dating to Lataian times circled the mound and the area was otherwise an untouched green wilderness. Outside that which had been mown to provide hay for the city horses – Mr Hobson, of livery stables' fame, had won the right from the Patrician to reap hay here – the area was an ever-regrowing wilderness of long grass, rosebay willowherb, and meadow flowers. Johanna recalled that her colleague Doctor Bellamy lived near here – Spa Lane, wasn't it? - and occasionally took her classes out here to see nature in the wild and to learn to identify wild plants and herbs.

At night, and in the dark, it might be positively spooky. Except for the fact a werewolf, and somebody who had happily slept rough in greater and far more dangerous wildernesses, were patrolling here tonight. Both of them agreed that "spooky" was going to happen to other people, if they had anything to do with it.

Angua, expressing relief her patrol partner was another woman, asked Johanna to look away while she Changed. A few moments and some indefinable noises later, Johanna judged she could look round. A large golden-haired wolf stood, looking up at her with human intelligence. Johanna quickly gathered up Angua's armour and clothing, and packed it all into an empty back-pack she had brought with her for the purpose, ensuring the armour, helmet, and metal objects were securely packed in layers of clothing so they would not clang or jingle and betray their presence. It was heavy, but she habitually did practice runs and training sessions with a twenty-pound pack.

Then they set off, Angua loping ahead in front, remembering Vimes' briefing:-

_The back-up squad is located in an upper floor of Tump Tower. Forward elements can be with you in less than a minute. You will have friends above who will be monitoring and watching you. If you're in real trouble, activate one of the signal rockets. They have self-igniting fuses. Just snap the glass phial protruding from the bottom. _

The two women set off, intent on their mission.

* * *

Clement N'Effabl screamed and writhed as two of the three thickset security deacons held him, face-up, over the Great Altar of Blind Io. The third, an incongruously large and broken-nosed altar boy, had been pressed into service to wave a thurible.

"Io! We call on thee to deliver this soul from the demon who holds him in its foul grip! Io! Io! IAO!" **(7)**

Clement felt the cold liquid burn of holy water as the chant and counter-response progressed. Something in him made him writhe harder.

* * *

In the infirmary of the Assassins' Guild, Ruth N'Kweze screamed and went into a fit. Igorina felt her brow. It was burning hot.

Knowing this was outside her competence, she went to the courtyard door and yelled for a student. She thrust a pre-written envelope into his hands.

"Take this to the University!" she ordered. "Get a senior wizard. Ridcully himself if he's there! Tell them it's a magical emergency and we need their advice. Go!"

She watched as the student ran off. Then she went back downstairs to provide basic nursing to Ruth.

Had they but known it – and they would compare notes later as their recovery began – Ruth and Clement were sharing a vision. Perhaps, as half-siblings, the bond between them was so close that they were forced to.

In their respective fevers, both found themselves exposed and lying on…. A square gridded playing board of some sort, where the checkered squares seemed to stretch to infinity on all sides.

Huge bodies stretched up above them. Suddenly, their perception altered to accommodate the new perspective.

Clement recognised the stately and robed figure of Blind Io on one side, the place where his eyes should be just smooth empty flesh, but with a constellation of additional eyes orbiting his head.

"Lord" he whispered.

And to his right, the gleaming-muscled Zulu warrior, wearing a leopardskin in the manner of a chief, but with the head of a ferocious lion. Unkulunkolo.

"Lord" he whispered.

_A man may not serve two masters, _an unseen voice spoke. _Choose._

Clement could not.

_Then the choice must be made for you. Observe. _

A third figure came into view. He was white, He was reading a book from a lectern. He had greying hair, neatly brushed back, framing kindly features such as a young girl might offer a glass of small beer to. But his _eyes_…. Clement tried not to be drawn into them. Behind him, he half-glimpsed a red-haired green-eyed woman who was watching intently.

The kindly looking man with the terrible eyes read on.

"For Unkulunkolo. To win the soul of Clement N'Effabl, he requires…."

The figure appeared to scroll along and down the page, as if reading a chart, and as if he were doing mental arithmetic in his head.

"… a throw of seven, plus two because the human is an ordained priest of Blind Io, plus three because the High Priest is in attendance and fighting for him, plus four because they are in a place sacred to Io. Minus three because his own acolytes in Ankh-Morpork are fighting for him on the psychic plane. With three dice, that's a throw of thirteen or above. A long shot, but you can do it!"

Unkulunkolo took the dice, and rolled them in his hands with slow dignified gravity. Clement watched in paralysed fear….

* * *

The slow drumming continued. M'Sekela the Witch-Finder, his head full of the rare spices and native plants being burnt to appease the God, looked into the open flame.

"The fat old priest is seeking to rid the backslider of our curse." He said. "But he will not succeed! Great Unkulunkolo has arisen and has gone to challenge the false God of the white man in single combat! Brothers, we are near victory!"

The other Witch-Finders looked on respectfully and added their voices to the chant.

"And the girl?"

"When he falls, the girl will be ours." M'Sekela said, flatly. "Already she weakens to our will. We will give her to N'Juri, I think. He more than deserves a reward and I have seen him lusting after her."

He relaxed into the drumming and the intoxicating smoke for a few seconds, then shouted

"Listen, brothers! I hear the rattle of the human bones that make up Great Unkulunkolo's wristlets and anklets! The god is close!"

And it was true: they could hear a faint rattling nose coming as if from nowhere.

* * *

The party in the Temple of Blind Io looked up, hearing a faint rattle as if of dice.

"Oh, they're playin' that bloody game again!" Hughnon Ridcully said, disapprovingly. "Sometimes I wonder why I bloody well _bother_…"

He splashed more holy water over Clement and carried on reciting the exorcism.

"And the Great Tutelary God of the Zulus rolls…. Eleven! Oh, bad luck!" said Fate. The Lady smiled at him in consolation.

Unkulunkolo stepped back, hiding his chagrin under a mask of good sportsmanship. _Is this how these Hubwards gods resolve conflict? _

* * *

Mustrum Ridcully and Ponder Stibbons were escorted to the infirmary by the duty Assassin guard. As well as his staff, Ponder was clutching a book the Librarian had selected for him.

"Bring it with us, lad." Ridcully had said. "That man's always on the mark when he picks an emergency book for someone."

Ponder nodded: the Librarian had thought it was important enough to chase them halfway across Sator Square to deliver. He hadn't even looked at it yet, preoccupied as he had been with keeping up with the Arch-chancellor's broad stride. As they went to look at Ruth, he reached for his thaumometer and put aside thoughts of where Johanna might be. If she were here and knew he was in the building, she'd be here soon enough.

"Hmm." said Ridcully. "Hmmm."

"Can you help?" said Igorina, impatiently.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I've seen somethin' like this before." Ridcully said. "When I had to observe what that dratted man Hix was up to. Only this was the end result. What readin's are you getting', lad?"

"There's a lot of magic, sir." Ponder said. "Only it's showing on an unfamiliar thaumic scale. The last time magic registed on this frequency was when the Watch asked us about the rogue Genuan voudou user who'd been turning people into zombies. Not the Reg Shoe sort, but the living dead that bent factory owner was using, to create a workforce that wouldn't ask for pay or go on strike."

"Hmmm. We've got bosses like Catterail who can get the same result without havin' to employ voudou." snorted Ridcully.

"Let's see where we are. The gel's evidently Howondalandian. You're getting' magic, but _native _magic. Tip for you, lad. Never underestimate native magic. It's powerful stuff. Somebody's gettin' at her head. Right, first thing we'll do is, we'll break the connection."

He turned to Igorina. "I shall require a piece of chalk and eight foot of string, if you please."

"Just that?" said Igorina, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Ridcully paused for a moment.

"Good point. Better make it two pieces of chalk, In case the first one breaks, d'you follow."

Igorina stomped off to find the requested items. Ridcully rolled up his sleeves.

"We'll need to shift a couple of those unoccupied beds. I need some floor space for this. Tell me, lad, how's yer geometry?"

On the bed, Ruth rolled and moaned again.

"Better set to quickly. She'll get some relief then."

* * *

Clement N'Fallibl saw the hand of his God pointing down at him. He saw the impassionate sightless face incline towards him.

_Lord? _He said, now free to choose and free of the noises in his head.

_I have delivered you, _said the voice of Blind Io. _Now go in peace. No curse or geas attaches. Give my thanks to the High Priest. As Above, So Below. _

Clement N'Effabl faded off the Gods' playing board. This only left Ruth. But two new pieces were on the board.

"Wizards?" said Unkulunkolo.

"A counter to your Witch-Finders." Io said, evenly. He looked past the Howondalandian Gods to where Offler was skulking in a corner.

_Bloody reptile. Making another of his bids to be Chief of the Gods. And he chose this Game, too. I'll make a handbag out of him yet._

* * *

Clement felt cold, wet and clammy. At Hughnon Ridcully's instructions, the Deacons released him.

"How do you feel, lad?" Ridcully asked, kindly.

"Sir! We have to get to the Guild! The Zulus are plotting a war! We need to warn the people they're targeting!"

"Ah, you can talk about it now."

Clement sat bolt upright.

"Ruth! My sister! She's still in danger!"

"Take it easy, lad. Tell me everythin'."

* * *

"Just put yer foot on the end of the string, lad, and let it turn with me. Good. You've got to be _exact _with these things or they turn on yer… "

Igorina watched, arms folded in disapproval, as Ridcully, pulling the other end of the string taut, chalked a magical octagram on the floor of her infirmary, enclosing it in an inner and an outer circle, finishing by chalking occult symbols at each of the eight points. At last he straightened up.

"Right, lad. Help me get that girl in the middle of this circle."

They half-dragged, half-lifted, Ruth and her sickbed into the exact centre of the octagram. Ridcully checked for scuffs and breaks in the chalked lines, renewing them in one spot. As he did so, Ruth sat up, fully awake.

"What's happening?" she said.

"I've got you in a place of safety, m'dear" Ridcully said. "Anything nasty hovering around you – oppression, our Doctor Hix calls it – can't live inside the magic octagram. It's probably hoverin' around the edge now, waitin' for you to come out. But in here, you're safe and in yer own mind. Which gives us time to think a bit, as you can't live in a magic circle permanently!"

"It's gone!" she said, wonderingly." It's gone!"

"Yes, but not very far and not for long. Stibbons, read that book, at your own leisure!"

"Sir!"

It was called _Gods, Fetishes and Possession Rites of Old Howondaland, _and had been written by a long-ago research professor. Ponder, in accordance with age-old certainties, surreptitiously looked up "fetish" in the index and followed the references, to satisfy his own curiosity. He was disappointed to find out it betokened a beleif system where a rough-and-ready small god, who by virtue of prayer and focus on an assembly of carved and painted bone, feathers and other scraps, entered and animated the fetish and acted as a localised Small God of the hearth and home.**(8)** The author noted the undeniable resemblance to voudou practice in the Genua region, and suggested this was down to convergent evolution, or maybe just coincidence, or perhaps one of those things.

He turned to the chapters on Possession and Oppression, and read silently for a while.

"Sir? You should read this." He showed a few passages to Ridcully who absorbed them with interest. Ponder noted that Ridcully had no questions to ask.

As Matron Igorina grudgingly made tea for everyone, Lord Downey entered. He was pleased to see Ruth awake and taking an interest in her surroundings.

"I'd have got here sooner, but for one thing or another."

He shook hands with Ridcully and Stibbons, and asked, out of curiosity

"What's next, Mustrum?"

"Well, there's an age-old law in magic that goes right down to the very roots, Donald. It's probably as old as the human race is.

"I've just reminded 'em that they're in Ankh-Morpork and any magic goin' on here plays by _our_ rules. Now some bugger out there cursed our girl. I've temporarily lifted the curse, which means one end of it is still attached to the person who sent it, and the other's flappin' around in the air attached to nothing. That's a pretty unstable state for magic to be in. Now I need to ask yer permission for this, because the Law of Threefold Return states that I can now mark it "return to sender" and post it back as not known at this address. But what with kinetic energy and soforth, it's going to _hurt_ when it snaps back. It may even kill. Which is assassination. And that's a demarcation issue. "

"Mustrum, for the next few minutes or however long it takes, by my authority as Master of the Guild and Chair of the Dark Council, I make you a honorary Full Assassin. I am duly contracting you to inhume the person or persons who attempted to murder at least one of my Assassins. With, if at all possible, _maximum _prejudice."

Ridcully grinned a mirthless grin.

"I don't like people usin' magic in my city without my say-so. You don't like 'em usin' it to kill your Assassins. I think our interests converge on this one! Maximum prejudice, and holdin' the mercy, _coming _right up!"

Ridculy hoisted his staff and spoke a word of command. A small spot of red light appeared at ceiling height and vanished through the Turnwise wall of he ward.

"Get a bearin' on that spot." Ridcully advised. "That's the exact direction of your enemy."

Downey marked the wall at the appropriate spot. Then Ridcully spoke again. They stood back as what looked like an inverted roaring tornado swirled fruitlessly around the magic circle, trying to get to Ruth. For a moment, there was the rank rotting-vegetation smell of the deep jungle, and all light in the room dimmed.

"It's showing itself." Ponder whispered to Downey. "It doesn't want to go, but…"

And again they heard the rattling of dice, faint but distinct, in the distance.

* * *

Fate ran his fingertip down and across the hits table in The Book.

"A level eight magic user, turning back a curse according to the law of Threefold return and returning it to its originator. This requires a throw of…. Five or more, on three dice! "

Blind Io rolled the dice.

"A one, a two, and a seven! A clear hit! Unkulunkolo, you have a saving throw of eleven or more!"

The Zulu God concentrated. Weighed the dice in his hand. Blew on thm for luck. Shook them. And threw.

The massed gods sighed and shouted

"Oooh! Terribly sorry, Unkulunkolo. You score ten! Your saving throw failed. "

* * *

In the shielded upstairs room of the Kwa'Zulu Embassy, two of the Witch-Finders looked at each other as they saw the small bead of scarlet light enter the room from the Widdershins wall. It crossed the room slowly then found M'Sekela, and moved up his body until it was directly between his eyes.

A few seconds later, as they were trying to work out what this portended, the world exploded. The rattle of dice went unheeded in a far bigger explosion.

JOSHUA M'SEKELA?

"Who are YOU?"

AH. LET ME PROMPT YOU. THE ROOM YOU WERE IN HAS BEEN UTTERLY DESTROYED BY THE BACKLASH OF MAGICAL FORCES YOU RELEASED. THE HUMANS WITHIN THAT ROOM HAVE BEEN DAMAGED TO VARYING DEGREES. IN YOUR CASE, TERMINALLY. ARE YOU SUITABLY PROMPTED AS TO MY IDENTITY?

"Where is Gamab, the Black Archer? All those he shoots with his bow die! I see no arrow and you carry no bow!"

I PREFER TO GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, JOSHUA. IT'S A CULTURAL THING.

And a scythe swung.

* * *

"Right" said Mustrum Ridcully. "All finished."

Downey whispered into the ear of a younger Assassin, who nodded and ran outside. Ruth shakily got out of bed and stood upright. Igorina looked on carefully.

"You can come out of the circle now, m'dear" Ridcully said, genially. With a complete absence of voices whispering inside her head or any sense of impending death or doom, Ruth took a deep breath and stepped over the chalked line. Nothing. She was cured. Then she remembered.

"Sir!" she said, insistently, to Downey. "I must speak to you. It is urgent!"

* * *

Angua and Johanna saw and heard the massive explosion from near the top of the Tump. Johanna noted the bearing coincided with that of the Kwa'Zulu Embassy, and wondered if this was the Guild's revenge for the attack.

Distracted by the explosion and fire, they nearly failed to notice the four loping shapes lower down the hill. Johanna, nudged by Angua, went to ground, levelling her crossbow. She'd loaded for lion, just to make sure. She tracked the rearmost of the four, following its movements with a steady hand and eye as it got nearer. They too seemed distracted by the distant fire, but the one that appeared to be the leader, the darkest shape of the four, was urging the rest on. Then, as the mixed scents of human and wolf must have hit them and they stopped dead, smelling the breeze and triangulating back to the origin of the smell, she squeezed the trigger gently. A leopard was bowled over, twitched, and did not move.

One down.

She reloaded quickly as the remaining three charged. Angua growled, long and low, and raced forward to intercept and challenge the black panther. Johanna shot again. Her bolt went slightly wide and succeeded only in putting a long painful-looking graze down its flank. She saw the creature jump, scream and slow down, but it did not cease its charge.

Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of gold and black locked in a death grip and rolling on the ground. This left her with two to deal with. Johanna made an immediate decision. Dropping the crossbow, she took one of the signal rockets from her belt and activated it by striking the base on the metal of her armour, breaking the self-activating fuse. She levelled the rocket at the charging leopards, reasoning that whatever angle she fired it at, it was still likely to be visible from the Tump Tower. It may as well also do some good on the way down…

She felt the roaring _whoomph!_ as the rocket left its casing. She dropped it and reached for her whip. She noted both leopards glanced at the red light of the rocket as it raced towards them and took action to avoid it, but they did not attempt to chase it. _They are not dogs. Only kittens chase anything that moves. _ At least it had slowed them. Machete in one hand, whip in the other, she waited for the onslaught. She lashed her whip out hard and saw their ears flatten in pain and anger, heard them hiss in frustration. Seeing Angua still locked in combat with the panther, she sensed the werewolf wasn't winning, but not losing either. Still warding off the other two, one of whom was wounded, she sensed the one they must subdue and capture was the black panther, the pack leader. And if it took two of them to do it…

As the sleek black body rolled on top in the fight – who was it who had said " they fight like cat and dog?" for the first time? – Johanna gingered it up with a slash of her whip, with all her weight behind it. The black body stiffened and it screeched – it must have hurt – but _where was the welt_? She hit it again. Her suspicions that she was not dealing with ordinary animals grew. Another scream, but still no mark. The force she had used should by rights have drawn blood. She wouldn't usually do this to an animal, but it looked as if Angua needed a hand. Then the panther broke free and tried to run, with a cut and bleeding Angua pursuing. Johanna swung her machete to deter a leopard seeking to get round to her left, and then the promised support started arriving. First one broomstick, than a second, came down in a long low ground-dive and followed the contour of the hill from about fifty feet. With them came a flock of bats, perhaps about a hundred, which spread out wide, watching and chasing. As one, the leopards broke off the combat and started running.

Johanna retrieved her crossbow and followed on foot, marking the dead leopard for retrieval later. She thought she understood a little bit better now why people became career coppers. It was the sheer adrenaline-pumping thrill of the chase when the investigation came together and gave you a suspect. It had something in common with being an Assassin.

* * *

"I see" said Lord Downey. "I'm glad you were able to say that. Obviously no blame attaches to you as you were under, ah, a degree of coercion, as I have witnessed tonight. You have had a trying time, miss N'Kweze. Go and get some true sleep, and perhaps take the day off from all duties tomorrow? "

A junior Assassin came running up to Downey.

"Sir, there are reports of a massive explosion and deaths at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy on Brookless Lane!"

Riscully and Downey shook hands.

"Can I tempt you to a sherry in my study, Mustrum? You too, Professor Stibbons."

"They can get my bloody sick-bay back as they found it first!" Igorina objected. But as an associate Guild member who quietly relished working for methodically sane people - so much more entertaining than the merely insane - there was a smile on her face.

_

* * *

__Damn, damn, damn. _

"You lost them in the press of people and golems rubbernecking the fire at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy." Vimes said, flatly.

"Yes sir. Sorry, sir" said Angua. Johanna noticed she was wearing fresh bandages.

"OK I know what it's like. Golems come in from everywhere to put the fire out. You've got neighbours coming out to see what the fuss is, passers-by, people selling tickets and bussing them in from outside, Dibbler selling sausage-inna-bun, Omnian missionaries playing to a captive audience, and then three leopards go barrelling in to the crowd and lose themselves in the confusion. Although Sally, once she'd mustered her bats back together again, swears blind at least one of 'em hopped the wall into the Embassy compound. Olga thinks they _might _have, although she says she'd lost her night-vision because of the fire. Which means the bloody things might belong to the embassy, who allow them out for unescorted walkies now and again. Can't be helped, and anyway we've got one on a slab in the mortuary. "

"Always assuming they're _only_ leopards!" said Captain Carrot.

Both he and Vimes stole a look at Angua. She inspected her newly-bandaged arms. She looked oddly distracted.

"I'm not sure. Sir. I'm not sure any more. I was biting and biting and biting but it was like being a puppy again. I was putting everything I could into those bites but they were barely breaking the skin. That was no ordinary animal!"

Johanna remembered she had some reading to do.

"Mr Vimes. The University kindly provided me with some research material that might help identify exectly whet those things are end what their motives might be. I've written my report end I've ettended the debriefing. May I fall out now end return to the Guild?"

"Of course. If you find anything out, please can you get it to the Yard as soon as? And thank you for tonight, Johanna. Your performance was exemplary."

* * *

The Gods of Howondaland, who had staked everything on Unkulunkolo's performance in the Game, trooped out of Dunmanifestin in dejected but dignified style. Blind Io smiled to himself. He couldn't see bloody Offler anywhere. Never mind, he could wait.

"Shall I show them the door, guv'nor?" asked Norris Janus, God of Doormen and of those whose job it is everywhere to restrict and control entry.

"Yes, please!" said Io, who was fighting back a tendency to shout something like "Get these bleddy kaffirs out of here!" Io was not crazy about the fact he was White Howondaland's God of choice, and that part of the flow of belief and faith that maintained him as Chief of the Gods came from people who'd devised a social structure as crazy as apartheid. Especially since they'd created the Kerrigian Reformed Church of Io**(9)** to preach that Io himself approved of the seperation of the races and the primacy of the white race. That sort of belief, for a God, was bloody well tainted, and he had to self-censor to stop it coming out.

_As above, so below. _

_"_Open the Door directly over Howondaland, as a courtesy, would you, Norris?" **(10)**

"Right y'are, guv!"

"Efter all, the lest thing we went is them building a bleddy Township on the stoep..."

_Damn! _

"Guv?"

"Forget I said that, Norris!"

Only a few Gods knew, or had bothered to find out about, the existence of the God-consciousness among suitably sensitive humans. _Just as well_, thought Io, _or they wouldn't behave as wonderfully unselfconsciously as they do. _Humans who could tune into the day-to-day trivia of life at the top of Cori Celesti were rare and generally became priests. Io regarded it as a useful tool. Being able to slip Hughnon Ridcully that snippet about Clement N'Effabl being a piece in the Game had ensured Hughnon did His bidding downstairs, in the merely mundane power struggle with the Zulus. This had reinforced His hand in the heavenly fight with the Gods of Howondaland.

Io felt a tug on the hem of his toga.

"Yes?"

"Down here, mister!" said a squeaky voice.

He steered a couple of eyes further down.

"The name's Jeri. I was sent here? The new God of Mice?"

"Oh, so you are! A word of warning, though, Watch out for…"

"That bastard of a cat. Don't worry, mister, I come equipped!"

From behind his back, Jeri produced an impossibly large cast-iron frying pan, which he wielded with ease.

"That bloody cat comes _anywhere near_ me, I'm clobbering her!"

Blind Io let a long slow grin cross his face. This might turn out to be _entertaining…_

_"Bring it on!"_ squeaked Jeri, God of Mice.

* * *

**(1) **Really true. There are documented cases coming out of Africa even today where the power of the magician in the eyes of the people is such that a person cursed by "magic" absolutely believes they are going to die. And they invariably do, as if by a sort of self-hypnosis and suggestion. This of course reinforces the power and prestige of the magician. See the files of paranormal investigation magazine F_**ortean Times. **_Wikipedia calls this the _**N**__**ocebo Effect. **_

**(2) **See Terry Pratchett's_**Feet of Clay**_**, **where Ridcully indirectly vandalises the Brass Bridge, when the divine protection offered by Io redirects a thunderbolt thrown at him by Offler. It blasts one of the ornate carved hippos on the bridge.

**(3) **Unkulunkolu: according to Wikipedia:- _the __creator god__ and great ancestral spirit of the __Zulu__ people. Unkulunkulu is believed to have grown on a reed in the mythical swamp of __Uhlanga__. In the __isiZulu__ language, the name means "the very great/high one". According to tribal myths, he took the form of half-man / half-tiger having a human torso and lower body, but with a lion-like face and claws. It is said that he came down from the sky to fight an Evil Demon in South Africa and won against the Demon on a No Moon Day._

**(4) **Ridcully had instituted stronger security measures, and made sure the Assassins' Guild got to know about them, ever since the night Guild members acting on Dark Council orders had infiltrated the Palace and abducted his favourite god-daughter, Alice Band, for performing un-licensed assassinations. Alice had then been co-opted into the Guild. See my story _**The Graduation Class. **_

**(5) **Because I'd be sued if I said "Crane", that's why.

**(6) **The daughter of a master Quirmian swordsmith and schooled by her father in all aspects of his trade, Emmanuelle also taught metalwork. The School Inspector had said the Guild should devote more lesson time to Arts, Crafts and Hobbies. In accordance with this, a Metalwork room had been established. Pupils on Pre-Black or working for the Black were given a lump of pig-iron on the first day of term. Their assignment was to turn it into a functioning sword and matching dagger by the end of the year. Emmanuelle tended to dress very lightly and minimally for comfort while in the forge. Male pupils at the, er_, difficult_ age could be diverted by the sight of their teacher, in a tight and minimal crop-top under her protective apron, watching beads of sweat form on her bare shoulders and upper chest and watching them as gravity steered them downwards. There were sometimes accidents.

Emmanuelle had in her turn been distracted by concern that her favourite sword had recently developed a disfiguring _discolouration, _beginning at the tip and spreading inexorably down the blade. It was like nothing she had seen before, and she had resorted to polishing, re-grinding and re-tempering the steel. Any member of the Watch who had seen her holding that sword to Nobby Nobbs' neck on the night of the attack could have told her what it was…

**(7) **_Io! Io! IAO! _On Roundworld, this is a chant out of ritual magick, as practiced by Aleistar Crowley and others, to honour the goddess and raise the serpent god Abraxas. It is not permissible to fully reveal its meaning, but Granny Weatherwax would sniff disapprovingly and say "Oh, It'a all to do with _goings-on_, is it?" Nanny Ogg would be ful-square behind its ritual significance. It is interesting the principle god of the Discworld has the name "Io".

Another practitioner of ritual magick, Sting, lead singer with the Police, cleverly incorporated it into the hit song _Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. _On superficial listening to the song, it's about his the year old daughter. But the hidden meaning becomes apparent when the chant of Io –Io-IAO! Is heard as the song fades out. This makes it clear as to which She the song is dedicated to .Sting also sets the chant to music as the title track of the Police LP _Regatta de Blanc_.

**(8) **Ref. the origins of Baron Saturday in Terry Pratchett's _**Witches Abroad**_, where the voodoo practitioner Mrs Gogol meticuluously creates four Small Gods from whatever scraps are hanging around, so as to strengthen the zombie-Baron for the showdown with Lilith. The gods fill and energise an old tuxedo so Saturday can attend the Ball.

**(9) **It is intersting that a main supporting plank for the apartheid system in the old white South Africa was the Dutch Reformed Church, which provided respectable religious backing for racial segreagation and white supremacy. THe DRC's racist position was constructed entirely from the same Bible from which orthodox Christianity derives its belief-sytem: food for thought for those who say the Bible is the word of a just God. The DRC created a theology that ticked all the boxes as a logical and internally consistent interpretation of the Bible. I use elements of this thinking in my** Good Omens **story** "I shall endure to the end!" **

**(10) **Because Gods can, that's why. virtually instantaneous translocation is the best way to travel.


	10. Ravelling threads

_**Whys and "weres" – c10**_

The cataclysmic explosion on an upper floor of the Embassy had created chaos. Ambassador Prince Canaan N'Vectif stood and watched helplessly from the garden, having organised the evacuation of everyone who could be reached safely. He stood back as the first of the golems stomped in to put the fire out. Strictly speaking they were intruding uninvited on the sacred soil of Kwa'Zululand, but the Ambassador had shook his head at those of his Embassy guards who were making a half-hearted attempt at preventing them. Mere assegais were useless, and a knobkerrie could only knock flakes off their stony skins. And anyway, although nobody knew why, the city's golem community had appointed themselves as its unofficial fire brigade. The moment a serious incident happened, golems for miles around would cease whatever work they were engaged in and march to the scene.

In general, the ambassador was happy, or at least _comforted_, to see them, although he frowned at the presence of the one called Mr Pump, who appeared to be co-ordinating their response. He knew the golem Pump was a Palace employee, and would surely take advantage of the situation to see everything and report back to Vetinari later.

_It can't be helped, _he sighed, _and at least we can monitor a known spy. _

Surveying the wreckage of his Embassy, N'Vectif felt unaccountably relieved. After receiving the two warning arrows from the Assassins' Guild, he'd been uncomfortably waiting for the second shoe to drop. He knew the Guild believed in the principle that vengeance is a dish best served cold: they were sophisticated enough to delay it for just long enough to turn the client into a nervous wreck.

A crowd had gathered in the street, held at bay by his rather nervous Royal Guardsmen and women. _Amazing how quickly a crowd gathers in this city to witness the misfortune of others, _he thought, sourly. _And even Dibbler is there, selling his offal in a bun. How does he do it? Does this man have a personal transportation system that gets him from Sator Square to the other end of the city in seconds? _

* * *

Meanwhile, the noise of the explosion, followed by the barking of dogs from the guard below, had awoken Pieter van der Graaf from his sleep. He donned the nearest dressing gown – Frijda's, as it would later turn out**(1)** – and ran to the window, throwing back the curtains. He saw the red flush in the sky from the direction of Brookless Avenue, and his mind raced, associating ideas.

"_Wat gebouer?"_ Frijda asked, from behind him. She sounded worried. He soothed her with a smile.

"Big explosion across town. I'm almost sure it's the Zulu Embassy" he said.

As he raced out of the room, the Duty Officer was racing up.

"Report!" the Ambassador said, curtly.

Relieved that he hadn't had to brave Frijda's wrath by entering their bedroom to wake the boss-fella, the young diplomat said

"Massive explosion at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy, sir. I've sent out agents to mingle with the crowd and get as close as they can."

Van der Graaf nodded. A horrible suspicion was forming in his mind. That demented monster Verkramp was rumoured to keep forty or fifty pounds of Agatean Fireclay on the premises, wasn't he. All part of his cherished Operation Whiplash….

"Get me Verkramp!" he shouted. "And by five minutes ago!"

The junior secretary rushed to obey.

* * *

Johanna Smith-Rhodes arrived back at the Guild, dead-beat tired and wanting to say a great big hello to her bed as she'd been neglecting it lately. Again, she realised she was being followed: but the followers this time were black-clad Assassins detailed to see her safely back home. They identified themselves, and fell in behind her, watching the street and skyline. She was welcomed by the gate guard, two young Assassins who stole covert looks at her in her Watch uniform and short practicable skirt.

"Lord Downey's compliments, miss." said the senior of the two. "He's working late in his study and has guests. Could you attend on him there?"

She nodded. Sleep could wait a little longer.

_Ag. Zoo class at nine. _

She walked resolutely towards the main door of the Guild building, hoping Downey would have the decency to keep it short.

She was surprised to find not only Mustrum Ridcully and Ponder, but also Clement and Hughnon Ridcully. She was surprised: most small enclosed spaces were just, well, too small to contain both Ridcullies at once, and any interaction between them was like watching a fire-eater performing in a fireworks factory whilst simultaneously trying to ride a unicycle on an oily floor. But tonight they appeared to be in full agreement on something.

Clement looked as if he'd just recovered from a wasting sickness. He was tired, he looked like death, but he was alert and coherent.

"Johanna, how was your night with the Watch?" Downey asked her pleasantly, pouring her a drink.

"Productive" she said. "I found out a lot end we made a kill. I got one of the leopards."

She listened to the other four's tales of their respective nights, feeling happy that Clement and Ruth were safe and free of the curse, The moment Clement had been freed, he had realised that Ruth was still in danger and had practically dragged the Chief Priest to the Guild, to discover his brother was already here, where he had been attending to that side of things.

"There was a messive explosion at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy." Johanna said. "I saw it. But I thought it was _us?"_

"Indirectly." said Downey. "I assured Arch-chancellor Ridcully that in the circumstances, he would be doing the Guild a great favour and that I didn't think the Dark Council would object too strenuously. Let's say we, er, _sub-contracted_ a certain job to the University, who were happy to oblige!"

"Can't have bloody foreigners running around our city doin' magic and cursin' people to death! " Mustrum Ridcully said, firmly. "That kind of thing sets a bad precedent, if we don't let 'em know we don't approve of it."

"Weapon used to conclude the inhumation: two wizards." Clement murmured, quoting the relevant section of a Claims Form. .

Johanna looked over to Ponder, who smiled weakly and shrugged.. He wasn't going to mention it here, but he'd felt Ridcully's staff pulling energy out of _his_ staff and psyche, to power the dissipation and redirection spell that had sent the Howondalandian magic back to its originating point, magnified thrteefold in ferocity and volume..

Hughnon Ridcully had looked in on Ruth: he'd said "The gel's alright. She's sleepin' and she's free of it too. But she doesn't have any patron God, does she? Any bugger could claim her. She needs to _commit_. Work on her, Clement, she's part of your great big happy family!"

There was reflective silence in the Master's study.

"I'm not crazy about all these new gods the bloody immigrants from Howondaland are bringin' in with them." Hughnon said, breaking the silence. He looked at Johanna, and realised. _Bloody immigrant from Howondaland_ applied to her too.

"Present company excepted, of course." he added, hurriedly.

"None taken!" Johanna said, pointedly. But she smiled, knowing the Chief Priest. His bluff and occasional thoughtless candour masked a big heart.

"Oh, there's Offler, yes, but he's been around here for long enough, and his priests and followers know how to behave in civilised society. It's these new buggers, like Glipzo and Malcomex and Uncle Whatsisface, who need watchin'. Can't ban 'em, not in a free society, but they need reinin' in!"

Ponder got the discussion back on track.

"Johanna, you say you killed one of those leopards?"

"Yes. The body's in the Watch mortuary et Pseudopolis Yard."

Ponder looked grave.

"Have you considered it might not be as dead as you think?"

"I put a lion-quality crossbow bolt right through its _heart_, Ponder!" Johanna said, slightly affronted. "Enything I shoot et, when I'm in a prepared embush position end I hev time and leisure to aim, is _dead_. First shot! End it _steys_ dead! "

Ponder swallowed.

"Quit while you're ahead, lad!" both Ridcullies advised him, almost simultaneously.

"No… Johanna…. Anyone who studies this case for longer than five minutes comes to the conclusion that these are not ordinary leopards. There are too many inconsistencies, too many things that don't add up. And the Librarian gave me a book to read tonight."

Ponder produced the copy of _Gods, Fetishes and Possession Rites of Old Howondaland, _and opened it to a page.

"There are only two paragraphs and Professor Featherley laments the absence of any more _reliable _information, but you should see this…"

He passed the book to her. She read.

_On the Leopard Societies of Darkest Howondaland…_

…_the similarities between the rites of the Leopard Societies, and what is claimed for the were-leopards in terms of powers, abilities and constraints, strikes an eerie parallel with what is definitely known about the werewolf clans of Überwald. _

_The moon governs their transformations: members may change at will at any other point in the month, but find it progressively easier to do so as the moon waxes to Full. Indeed, they __**must **__change, regardless of volition, if the light of the full moon strikes them. They may apparently be slain by mundane blades, spears, and arrows, but will return to life on the following full moon. _

_Certain as yet unknown plants inhibit and weaken them, in the manner of asafoetida or wolfsbane to werewolves of the central continent. _

_But the only two things known to slay, and permanently lay to death, a were-leopard, are fire, and that which the Howondalandians know as the moon-metal. The parallels to our werewolves are extraordinary!_

"I'm sorry. Ponder. Now I see what you mean." Johanna said, as she quickly referenced the index to find out more about the Metal of the Moon. Yes: gold was the Metal of the Sun; silver the Metal of the Moon. It made sense. _And there would be more in the book in her room, by van der Post, _she reminded herself. _But here it is. Our first breakthrough. _

"So when the moon rises tomorrow," Hughnon Ridcully said, thoughtfully, "that bloody thing is going to blink, wake up, and get orf its slab at the Yard. And it won't be in the best of tempers, either!"

Downey, who had absent-mindedly written down _Aysofetida (sp?) is a plant (?) deleterious effect on werewolves. How deleterious? Spk. Mericet and Davinia Bellamy. __**(2), **_turned to her and said "Amusing though the prospect is of the Watch inadvertently importing one of these creatures and making it easy for it to go on a killing rampage in their own headquarters, I do think out of common courtesy we should warn them. Professor Stibbons, is it permissible for that book to be loaned on to Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot?"

Mustrum Ridcully was consulting a pocket diary.

"Moonrise tomorrow is nine-forty-seven pee-emm" he said. "It should give the Watch time to get ready and see if this lead checks out!"

"They'll need to hev the body under guard tonight!" Johanna burst out, suddenly realising. . "Or the others may try to rescue it!"

Lord Downey was speaking quickly into a communication tube.

Then he smiled and addressed them.

"It's getting late." he said. "Arch-chancellor, High Priest, I am arranging for courtesy coaches home for both of you. Johanna, Professor Stibbons. Just one last job for you both. You will take a coach to the Yard and impress on them the importance of keeping the body of that creature under heavy and secure guard. Then I can turn a blind and deaf ear to the possibility the Professor might care to stay over here, given the lateness of he hour, rather than return to the University. Subject to discretion being called for in the presence of girl students, of course."

"Of course, sir" said Ponder, brightly. He 'd only once seen Johanna's rooms at the Guild, and freely accepted that males were not normally encouraged to visit resident lady teachers' apartments, owing to their proximity to the girls' dorms. **(3)**

"So we're agreed, then? We put a joint report on Vetinari's desk, urging he call order among the diplomatic community and rein in the, ah, unauthorised excesses of certain shadowy organisations? Good! I won't keep anyone her longer than is necessary." said Downey.

Bang their bloody heads together, except for the fact young Johanna's lot have been behaving impeccably and haven't risen to provocation." said Hughnon Ridcully.

"So far." Johanna said. "My onkle is not happy with his BOSS section head, Liutnant Verkramp, who hes a med plen to retaliate. Verkramp is dangerous. He has eccess to Agatean Fireclay. I hev been trying to locate it so es to get it into safer hends, but it is well concealed et our Embessy".

* * *

Excused to go and warn the Watch, Johanna detoured quickly by her room. She rummaged among the books the Librarian had loaned her, picked up the copy of "_On The __Secret Rituals of the Kwa'Zulu and Matabele jungle clans" _by Laurens van der Post , then raced downstairs again to the waiting coach, which sped out into the night.

"Oh, hello, miss. I thought you'd gone off duty?" Sergeant Colon asked, from behind the duty desk. Fred had learnt over the years to be diplomatically deferential to policewomen of apparently lower rank than he, especially if they were the sort whose ability far outstripped his. It saved bother later.

"I thought I hed too."

"Congratulations on getting that leopard earlier, miss. I got a look at the body when they brung it in. It was a big bugger. I'd not have liked to have faced it down."

"Which is why I em beck. Is Ceptain Cerrot still here?"

"He's down in the mortuary, miss. Said he had things to supervise – oh, here he is now!"

"We just can't keep you away, Miss Smith-Rhodes!" Carrot said, pleasantly.

"We need to make a plen. Quickly. Concerning the creature in the cellar. Ponder?"

Ponder Stibbons passed over Professor Featherley's _Gods, Fetishes and Possession Rites of Old Howondaland,_ opened to the correct page. Carrot, never a fast reader, but certainly a thorough one, took time to assimilate what he was looking at.

"I thought so!" he said, slamming the book shut. "Sergeant Pessimal was first to suggest we might have some sort of were-creature. At the time it was just one step away from an educated guess. But now I'm certain!"

"But whet do we _do_ ebout it?" Johanna said, insistently.

Carrot smiled.

"Please come this way, Miss Smith-Rhodes. You too, professor."

Carrot led the way down to the sub-basement cold room that the Watch dignified with the title of _mortuary_. Officially, it was part of the Watch Igor's parish.

"In the old days when this was a Ramkin town-house, this was the ice room." Carrot said, conversationally. "Ice would form here in winter, or clean snow could be collected from the roof, packed into barrels, and it would keep as snow and ice right into summer. You know, for use in food, or indirectly, to keep meat fresh."4

Johanna noted the layer of ice on the concrete-covered wall, and nodded. Her breath condensed in the chill. She took in a group of objects in the room, as her vision adjusted to the dark.

The dead leopard was spread out over one of the horizontal slabs, which in the old days might have carried large meat carcasses. Standing to either aide of it were the large immobile bulky forms, red eyes glinting in the gloom, of

"Constables Shtetl and Dorfl." Carrot said. "What are your orders, mr Dorfl?"

The police golem saluted, ponderously.

"To Resist Any Attempt To Liberate This Prisoner. To Take Into Custody, And Not Kill Or Unduly Damage, Those Attempting A Rescue. To Wait Until Moonrise At Nine Forty-Seven Pee-Emm Tonight And Observe, Taking such Action As Is Necessary To Prevent A Re-Animated Body Escaping And Causing Further Damage. Sir. "

"Miss Smith-Rhodes?" Carrot invited her.

"I em enswered, sir."

She used golems as zookeepers; they were firm but fair with the big cats, and a golem was capable of lifting two lions simultaneously by the scruff of the neck. They could also grab a fast-moving animal with deceptive and eye-defying speed.

Johanna stepped forward; just one question to answer now. A quick manual exploration of the apparently dead leopard's underside revealed that it was female. For professional reasons, she noted where her crossbow bolt had hit: _exactly_ where she'd aimed it.

"Ceptain, I believe thet if this turns out to be a were-leopard, when she ewakes she will enswer to the name of either Elizabeth N'kimbli or Blessing M'thuleze. I will write the names down for you? Both are eccredited cultural secretaries et the Kwa'Zulu Embessy, however, so you may heve problems detaining them. Perheps a report should go to Lord Vetineri to ask him to strip them of their diplomatic eccreditations?"

Carrot took meticulous notes. Johanna could not contain her curiosity any more, and she asked

"Sir, you were ehead of me in working this out. What tipped you off to the possibility we were dealing with weres?"

Carrot smiled. "Shall we go back in the warm? Professor Stibbons appears to be shivering."

"I was just reflecting." Ponder said. "A certain supernatural personification we met at Hogswatch could sit out the summer in a place like this!"**(5)**

"Just don't sey the _name_!" Johanna warned him, smiling. They left the mortuary.

"Three reasons. " said Carrot, answering her question. "One, Sergeant Pessimal first posed the idea, and A.E. is a _very _bright investigator. Any lead he suggests is worth following. Two, and don't say this to Angua, _please_. It's the sheer improbability of there only being one type of were-creature on the Disc. Why only wolves? Nature, in my experience, doesn't work that way. I mean, you can argue vampires are were-bats, for instance. Thirdly, I once saw Angua killed." He closed his eyes, remembering the awful day, and said

"By Doctor Cruces, incidentally. Downey's predecessor. Were you here for that?"

"I wes only a student Essessin then." Johanna said. "But I remember being on the stairs with ell the others who hed heard the bengs and creshes from the Mester's study. You end Mr Vimes pessed within feet of me. You were cerrying her body, es I recall."

"Cruces killed her with the outlawed gonne-weapon." Carrot recalled. "In his turn, Cruces was killed during the fight in his study."

_He is very carefully not revealing which of them killed Dr Cruces, himself or Mr Vimes, _she thought. _Does this have to do with the hole in the pillar, the exact shape the cross-section of a sword might make? _

I took Angua's body back to the Watch-house and laid her out on a table. I washed and combed her fur because, well, somebody has to. And because she wasn't killed with silver, and you have to hope, I waited for the moon to rise. And she rose with the moon. **(6) **

Johanna would not have classed herself as a romantic, but she still felt moved.

"So I would not be in the least surprised if our guest in there wakes up at moonrise. In which case, she's got to get past two golems."

Carrot led them back upstairs.

"Even if they turn out to be weres, there are still some questions to answer." he said. "Such as – when Angua fought the leader last night, the black panther, why were her jaws so ineffectual? She should have bitten his head off at the neck, but she could hardly break and graze the skin. She had no problems biting any of the other three!"

Ponder recalled something he had read.

"Was the panther wearing anything around its neck? A collar, perhaps?"

Angua reported glimpsing some sort of pouch, or purse, on a leather thong, yes."

Ponder opened _Gods, Fetishes and Possession Rites of Old Howondaland, _to part of the chapter on_ Fetishes. _He passed this to Carrot, indicating the place on the page.

Being male and curious, like Ponder he paused to ascertain the true meaning of the word "fetish", feeling vaguely glad he had an opportunity to find out without needing to ask Rosie Palm.

Then he read, slowly, out loud,

_A fetish, once the link between the god-object and the Small God animating it is achieved, need not be a static object in the shrine of the hut or kraal. _

_It can be made portable and may be worn by a warrior especially chosen of the Witch-Finders, and it may be charged with rendering the weapons of an enemy useless and ineffectual in battle. With the indwelling Small God reinforcing the warrior's belief that he is invulnerable, the enemy's weapons may be negated or greatly reduced in strength. An enemy seeing his weapons have no apparent effect however well wielded may lose heart for the battle and run away. __**(7)**_

_Only two things can oppose a fetish. The first is the deployment of greater magic, or that of a far more potent Witch-finder than the one who built the charm. The second is the physical removal of the fetish from the body of the wearer, at which he becomes as mortal and vulnerable as the next man. Silver, also, is reputed to have a negating effect._

"Now we know!" said Johanna. "Gillian wes perplexed that she shot it et point-blenk range with a powerful crossbow. Twice. But the bolts only penetrated so far, end it pulled them out and threw them beck at her! End she said it laughed et her end tapped a beg it wore et its neck!"

"What Gods would a werewolf pray to?" muttered Carrot. "And could their priest build a fetish for Angua?"

"How could we steal this thing off the were-leopard?" Ponder wondered. "Capture its lucky charm, and it becomes normally empowered again."

"Certainly things to think ebout!" Johanna said, as a gust of sleep caught her.

"But I need my bed. Take me home, Ponder?"

Carrot wished them goodnight, adding that when all this was over, why didn't Ponder and Johanna make arrangements to share a table with Angua and himself at a good restaurant somewhere?

"After all, you may be an Assassin but you're not a poisoner!"

"Oh, there's always a first time…" Johanna assured him, while accepting the dinner invitation. Another memory had been sparked off and ideas were prodding at her mind. Tomorrow, she would talk to various colleagues about trialling new weapons against were-leopards.

"Glad you're back, miss!" the Guild coachman said with relief, as they got in. "Something's been making the horses bloody skittish. I heard somewhere that the Watch employs a werewolf?"

Johanna tensed, and looked about her. The night was dark and cloudy and pools of shadow were everywhere between the Watch building and the Opera House.

"Ponder," she said. "Do not look, but we are being watched. Do you have a thaumometer on you? Check for megic and tell me which direction."

He rushed to oblige.

"Over there. In the shadow of the Opera House. It's strong over there."

"Tell me if it follows. Cerry on, driver!"

* * *

As the coach pulled off, Emmanuel N'Juri needed every ounce of self-control not to chase it, to tear and rend first the horses, then as it pulled to a stop, its occupants.

He trembled with rage and fury. This now blended with a strong sense of shame. It was wholly typical of the Boor mentality that with three animals she could have used the whip on, she had passed over the two leopards and taken it to the hide of the black creature. He snarled, and wondered how many other black skins had felt the lash of slavery.

The ineffectual bumbling wizard he could deal with at leisure. But the red-haired ghost-skinned Boor girl, the _baas-lady_, had passed on from being a mere _threat._

In his human body, he felt the long stinging humiliating lash of the whip. Twice she had struck him. The Boor girl would plead for mercy and oblivion before she died. He, Emmanuel N'Juri, swore that before the dark gods of Howondaland.

Johanna Smith-Rhodes would die. But not here, not so near their police force. He had a demonstration to make to their Watch, after seeing the destruction the whites had conspired to cause to the Den. A demonstration that would strike fear into them. He padded off, to search for a suitable candidate for death.

* * *

**(1) **This is an iron rule of narrative causality. A man in a position of power and influence, awoken at home from a deep sleep to attend to an emergency, will _always _unheedingly put his wife's wholly inappropriate dressing gown on as he races to make himself presentable. To the veiled amusement of his underlings, Lady Frijda's was pink with flufft trim and a stylised jerboa on the front pocket.

**(2) **Like all careful Assassins with an inclination to poisons and potions, Lord Downey never passed on a chance to assimilate new information, and the one on asafoetida and werewolves was certainly new to him.

**(3) **This informal rule was relaxed somewhat during school hols, when the majority of the pupils were elsewhere.

**(4) **Again, really true, Refrigerator technology was only invented in the early twentieth century. Before that, grand English country houses all used to exploit natural cold-spots, or have them purpose-built in likely places, to trap winter cold and ice for use out of season. Generally, only July and August were months where it could get so hot the ice would even melt in the cold-room. In the cities, only rooftop snow that could be guaranteed pure was used. Nobody, for instance, would use the snow which had settled on a London street to cool a drink with. Snow on an Ankh-Morpork street very soon ceases to be white in colour.

**(5) **See my short _Il se passait…_ (It Happened on Hogswatchnight) for the account of how Ponder and Johanna met the Wintersmith.

**(6) **See Terry Pratchett's** Men At Arms **for the full story.

**(7) **Another of those things that persist in the Africa of today. In Uganda and other countries riven by civil war, the idea that a magically charged amulet may deflect bullets and explosions is fervently believed in by members of guerrilla armies. It may have a basis in fact: even with an automatic rifle, it's bloody hard to aim accurately in the heat of battle and the most even a well-trained soldier can sometimes do is to point vaguely in the right direction and hope. It was estimated in WW2 that to guarantee a kill with rifle ammunition alone, you needed to fire ten times a man's weight in bullets. As this is so ineffectual – surprisingly so to people who've never done military service – imagine the sight of wild crazy men, seemingly unhurt by your fire, who keep coming at you and ignoring your shots. If you were an ill-trained African peasant soldier, wouldn't you want to blame it on magical intervention, rather than your own nervously appalling shooting?


	11. Loading for Were

_**Whys and "weres" – c11**_

After a few hours of deep refreshing sleep where she and Ponder had made the best of the single bed in her apartment_**, **_Johanna was up in the morning to perform the routine admin jobs that plagued a teacher's life. She was pleased to see Ruth had made her way to the office first, and was dealing with some of the routine administration.

"You were told to take the day off, _skabenga!_" she said, reprovingly.

"No need, Johanna. They say work is the best cure and I feel so alive this morning!"

Maroon the post-boy turned up. Both women looked sympathetically at him. He had lost something of his usual perk.

"How is your father this morning?" Ruth asked, gently.

"Much better, miss Ruth, thank you for asking. But he won't be back at work for a few weeks yet!"

"You are pert of the Guild tradition." Johanna said, with gentleness. "The Maroons, fether end son, hev been porters et this Guild for several hundred years. Your femily end the Stipplers both. Perheps it is better you should know now thet sometimes, being a loyal servant to Essesins cen be a dangerous occupation. One day, you will inherit the Porter's Office. I'm sure you will be es brave end es loyal es your fether. Did Lord Downey express thenks?"

"Yes, miss. He come and give our mum a big purse to tide us over till Dad's well again. There was a lot more in that than a fortnight's pay!"

"There would be." said Ruth. "And I've got something for you today. You know Kwa'Zululand has recently opened its first post office? We're issuing stamps now and these are probably the first ones to get as far as Ankh-Morpork. I've asked Reverend Clement to save his for you too!"

The boy's face lit up.

"Thanks, Miss Ruth!"

Johanna smiled. She knew Clement had worked out the secret of how she got to be first with the mail in the morning, she suspected even before Downey himself. Still, the Dark Council got mail from all over the Disc: she suspected that by the time Downey caught on and negotiated an offer, young Maroon would have one of the best stamp collections in town with a handsome profit from duplicates sold on or traded at Dave's Stamp and Pin Exchange.

Ponder Stibbons joined them, red-faced.

"Everywhere I go, your girls are nudging each other and giggling." he commented.

"They will. They're teenage girls. Get used to it!" Johanna said, shortly. Then she smiled at him. "I'm so gled you have a morning free to come to the Zoo with us" she said. "While I'm supervising the pupils, I went you to borrow an office end read this _verdammte_ book so I don't hev to. There aren't enough hours in the day! You cen brief me later. Do a synopsis or something."

She gave him Van der Post's _Secret Rituals. _She had tried to read a little of it last night – early this morning, but her head had drooped and her eyes had closed. Ponder had then lifted her up and carried her to the bed, saying "Don't argue!" in a firm voice. And incredibly, she hadn't.

She looked at the Times.

"Oh, no!"

**5:00am: Stop Press: Latest leopard slaying! **

**A body identified as that of Miss Greta Tomelty (35), seamstress, of Paradise Street, Ankh-Morpork, was found horribly mutilated as if by the claws and fangs of a large animal, and dumped on the steps of the Watch headquarters at Pseudopolis Yard.**

**Duty officer Sergeant Frederick Colon (63?), alerted by screaming, ran outside and found the body, but was knocked over by something large running into him and sending him sprawling. By the time Sergeant Colon had regained his senses, the assailant was long gone, leaving only the corpse of the luckless Seamstress. **

**The attack can only be interpreted as the deliberate throwing-down of a challenge to the City Watch and adds to the escalating tide of incidents around the City in recent days. **

**Mrs Rosemary Palm (age with-held) has expressed shock and outrage at the slaying of a Guild member going about her lawful but immoral business, and is seeking a meeting with Commander Vimes at the earliest opportunity. The Agony Aunts are said to be intent on locating the murderer and have dropped all other investigations "for the moment".**

**Sir Samuel Vimes is reliably reported to "have gone spare". **

_**On other pages:**_

**Mystery of massive explosion at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy on Brookless Lane. White Howondalandians ruled conclusively out. If not them, then who? A whole wing of the Embassy has been gutted by fire and the death toll has risen to five. The leading suspect for the blast is the Assassins' Guild, although Lord Downey issued a press release to state that he has carried out his own investigation and can state with 100% certainty that no Guild member was responsible for the blast. Indeed, His Lordship expressed sympathy and has released his Howondalandian-born chaplain, the Reverend Clement N'Effabl (38), to provide counselling and religious support to his countrymen who may have been traumatised by the explosion. **

"_Kak_!" Johanna exploded.

"First us. Then the wizards. Then the High Priest. Now they're annoying the Seamstresses." said Ruth, calmly. "Are these cats a suicide squad?"

Johanna considered. If they were the fanatical servants of the Witch-Finders, it made an odd sort of sense. Maybe they had been sent here with the express intention of causing as much havoc and chaos as possible before dying. And already dead men and women had nothing to lose. She decided to select her weapons with care and discreetly advise those of her students who were not silly and could be trusted with weapons to visibly arm themselves, in strict self-defence only.

The Guild owned several of the new-style omnibuses for the purpose of mass transit of its students between sites. The city bus service was slow and uncomfortable, but reliable, and depended for its motive power on elderly horses with a bloody-minded determination not to go above five or six miles per hour. With speed and efficiency in mind – no teacher likes to supervise high-spirited pupils on a long coach trip **(1)**that eats into teaching time, and with a strict timetable to follow, the Guild's mass transportation system used twice the number of horses the Omnibus company found economic, and they were younger, fitter, and stronger draft animals. It therefore took a little less than ten minutes to get from Filigree Street to the Zoo, two miles away. In accordance with School policy, however, they still had rickety and uncomfortable wooden seats.

Johanna and Ruth anxiously watched the streets for trouble. She didn't think the things would attack in daylight, and in any case they had taken grievous wounds, but there could be more mundane perils out there. Getting into the open country outside New Ankh, she relaxed, with the Zoo in sight.

* * *

Clement N'Effabl knelt at the bedside of the dying Witch-Finder, with compassion. He was one of two who had survived the blast, but was not expected to live long.

"Renegade!" the emaciated old man spat at him, trying feebly to point the bone. Clement sighed. The pointing bone had lost its fear for him, but Uncle Canaan stepped out of its range.

"You will die soon." Clement said, gently. "Seek to pass in a placid and forgiving frame of mind. Forget your enmities!"

The old man spat. Clement again sought to ignore the stench of one who had never washed and of the squalor in which he had lived.

"Make an end of it, Assassin!"

Clement looked questioningly at his uncle, who nodded.

Then he delivered the _misericordia, _thinking of how much alike this was to the final examination test for the student Assassin: challenged to inhume a body lying in a bed. The Witch-Finder convulsed once, and was silent. Clement silently said a prayer for forgiveness, and looked at Uncle Canaan, half-expecting the Ambassador to hand him a pink slip and a handshake of congratulations. Instead, his uncle nodded gravely and said

"It is done. Now we move to the next one, and you will again give the Last Rites". Clement cleaned and re-sheathed his stiletto, and they went to the sickbed next door. This one was the clerk, a literate Zulu who kept records for the Witch-Finders and regularly sent reports to the homeland. He had been present when the magical explosion had happened and had been rescued by Golems, much to Canaan N'Vectif's concern. But a private word with Lord Downey in the early hours of the morning had produced a mutually agreeable solution. Contracts had been drawn up, for the look of the thing, and within a few minutes, the death toll had risen to six and Clement was ten thousand dollars better off, after Guild tax. He would give the money to a charitable organisation that provided basic education for Black Howondalandian children.

"It does seem that we have a mutual problem with the Witch-Finders." Downey had said, genially. "You can only exert minimal control on them because they stand outside the usual hierarchy of the Embassy and their superiors are elsewhere. They masterminded an attack on my Guild. Our interests converge, Ambassador. I will ask for a down-payment of ten thousand dollars and the balance on completion. I do, alas, have a broken window to repair, and I consider the injured Guild porter requires some sort of compensation for his wounds. And I understand you are reluctant to speak of the other thing. But with their guidance and direction gone, I do not consider the leopards will be much of a problem for very much longer."

"Now we must do a distasteful thing" Canaan said, shuddering. "You are a priest as well as an Assassin. Loathsome though they are, these men still died in a foreign place serving their country as they imagined their country should be served. They had friends and family who will need to know and may even grieve for them. We should collect together their personal effects for repatriation, to be sent Home in the next diplomatic bag. They can be addressed for attention of the college of Witch-Finders."

"I agree." said Clement. "We should thoroughly search their rooms for personal effects and take care of what we find. I would also suggest that we immerse all personal property, such as the pointing bones, in salt water. A Wizard I know advises me that will cleanse their personal influence from them, and a pointing bone, say, will become just a dead bone with a feather glued to it. It will make it next to impossible for one skilled in psychometry to read anything from them, such as the circumstances of their deaths. "

"We will never have another chance!" said the Ambassador. "The College of Witch-Finders will send out replacements."

"Such a shame all their personal records concerning Zulu citizens resident in Ankh-Morpork were destroyed in the fire." Clement said, thoughtfully. "It must have taken years to accumulate such material concerning who is and is not a politically reliable person. And with any luck, it will take years to build again!"

"I agree" said the Ambassador. He and Clement had had a productive morning collecting the Witch-Finders' security files and consigning them to the Embassy furnace. Clement had read his own report out of curiosity. There had been an equally damning one on Ruth N'Kweze.

"And our feline friends?"

"Sleeping it off. N'Juri slunk in late and bloodied. But they are formidable opponents for one Assassin, and questions would be asked if they were found dead as well as the Witch-Finders. At least I can have their bodies cremated, so that the ashes may be returned. "

"And if what I hear is true, I could not have killed them anyway." Clement said, regretfully. He wished he could have made a clean sweep of it. "I will report back to the Guild".

"Do so, my nephew. I can order rebuilding to start now I am friends again with Lord Downey".

They clasped arms, warrior to warrior.

* * *

"Hmmm." Said Lord Vetinari, setting the reports aside.

"Six dead, and all of them the Embassy's contingent of Witch-Finders and their civilian clerk. A most regrettable loss of life, Drumknott."

"Indeed, sir."

"Especially as Doctor Lawn reported that with careful nursing and medical care, two of them might survive. Although he was _most_ disapproving of the wilful squalor in which they lived their lives and their refusal to understand the essentials of regular hygiene or indeed the use of a modern sanitary privy."

"Complications brought on by self-neglect and poor hygiene, sir?"

"We can afford to call it that, Drumknott. I think that in future, we absolutely _insist _the Kwa'Zulu Embassy retains no more than two resident magic-users, both of whom will be under the strictest diplomatic accreditation with conditions imposed as to how they conduct themselves in our city. I will prepare a note for our man in Kwa'Zululand to pass to the Paramount Chief stipulating our concerns and conditions. Oh, and congratulations on the birth of his… ten?.... new children since we last exchanged notes, how time flies! Prepare suitable baptismal gifts for six daughters and four sons, if you would. "

"I believe the Kwa'Zulu do not _baptise_, my lord." Drumknott said, diffidently. "They have a naming ceremony some days after the birth, and the appropriate rites of passage are carried out between the ages of seven and thirteen, according to custom and circumstance."

"Which may include being given into the care of the, ah, _Leopard Society_ at the age of seven?" Vetinari inquired. He nodded towards his personal copy of van der Post's book on Secret Societies.

"An interesting read, Drumknott. I am rather hoping that other people in this city will have made time in their busy schedules to read it by now."

"Such as Miss Smith-Rhodes, sir?"

"Indeed, Drumknott. This city attracts strong capable young women who are capable of organising great things. It is one of its understated strengths."

Vetinari smiled, mirthlessly.

"We have a spate of as-yet unresolved murders. Has Mrs Palm arrived for her appointment yet? She was very keen on one. In turn, a Beggar, a Thief, and now a Seamstress, as if calculated to stir the concern of three of our most powerful Guilds and diminsh the Watch. There is an incident in the night which might be construed as an attempt on the life of Ambassador van der Graaf. To which I note, with relief, he has restrained from any ill-thought out and intemperate response in kind, despite a rather excitable subordinate insisting on such action. And then an ill-advised attack on the Assassins' Guild, suspected to be a direct attack on another prominent White Howondalandian of very good family back home.. This is closely followed by a massive explosion at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy, for which both the Assassins and the White Howondalandians can be ruled out as suspects."

Vetinari steepled his fingers. He nodded towards van der Post's book again.

"Prepare a memo for the Arch-chancellor, Drumknott. Advise him that the university is creating a chair for a Visiting Lecturer in Howondalandian Studies, and that the one candidate on the short-list is Professor Laurens van der Post. Such a remarkable intellect. Advise him that if the Professor is employed, found suitable teaching and research duties and paid a modest stipend to lift him out of genteel Quirmian poverty, then I will not look too closely into the University's part in a magical explosion at an Embassy in this city. Indeed, I will take the view that it was misadventure on the part of the Witch-Finders who clearly brought it upon their own heads."

"Would van der Post accept, sir? I understand he is on record as expressing his discontent with the regimented way academia imposes conformity on the academic."

"Oh, he will, Drumknott, especially after I've explained to him what is in his best interests. He will."

* * *

Johanna and her students arrived at the Zoo. She issued assignments, leaving Ruth to supervise, and went with Ponder to the office for a word with Gritchlow about there being one leopard too many. The elderly keeper confirmed that this was indeed the case.

"But here's the funny thing, miss. The golem counted six. And everyone knows golems can count, right? I bin in there and today there are only _five_. Somebody's messing abaht!"

"One got up and welked eway, then!" Johanna mused.

"Miss?"

"Somebody is indeed messing us ebout, Mr Gritchlow." she said. "I wish you to take me into the enclosure. Under golem escort, of course!"

Ponder remained to read the book for her and take notes. After a while, his pen started to write. And did not stop.

Johanna and Gritchlow walked out into a commotion.

"WHET!" she demanded, "Hes been happening here?"

A sallow unhealthy-looking individual was rolling on the ground, groaning in agony. A crowd had gathered to watch. Johanna took in the crossbow bolt sticking through the man's hand, which also impaled a girl's purse held close to his palm. She glared about her for a likely culprit.

"Miss Rossendale." she said, forcing icy calm into her voice. "I cennot help but notice you ere holding a discharged crossbow in your right hend. The... gentleman here… is complaining of pain sensations end a leck of mobility in his right hend. This is due to the crossbow bolt sticking right through it. I suspect these two things _mey_ be related."

"He _was _pickpocketing Jeannie Venturi's bag, miss. And it _was _a sub-powered bolt on a slack string. I slackened the tension so it wouldn't kill him!"

"My father has people like him _whipped_!" Miss Venturi proclaimed, as only a younger daughter of Lord Venturi would. She was not one of the pupils Johanna had trusted with weapons.

"That's me dipping hand!" the thief complained through tears of pain. "That's me livelihood! I'll sue you for compensation!"

Johanna reached down, took him one-handed by the lapel, and jerked him to his feet. The onlookers took in the fact she could do that one-handed. They also took in the whip on her belt. As did the thief, who took in the fact he was alone in a world full of black-clad Assassins. His eyes darted down to the whip. And up to Johanna's narrowed eyes.

She nodded.

"You're in my _way_, little man!" she said, "I don't have time for this, but just for _you_, I'll make it. When you pickpocketed this young woman, did nothing ebout her clothing or general demeanour suggest to you that you were making a big mistake? Yesno?"

She shook him.

We dress in bleck end we cerry weapons. Two big clues. Yesno?"

She shook him again.

"You mey be a licenced Thief." she said. "In which case I em forced to show you a certain courtesy es between Guilds. Luckily for you I em qualified in basic medicine end surgical techniques. We will now demonstrate to my cless the festest end safest wey of removing a wickedly berbed crossbow bolt end petching up the wound. Eren't you _lucky_? Cless, gether round. Misss Venturi, you hev no right to snigger. You ellowed a Thief to get so close to you thet he could steal your purse end you _did not even notice! _Thet is innettention end overconfidence! The Essessin should be conscious of her surroundings ET ELL TIMES!_"_

She turned to the thief.

"This will not hurt a bit!" she said, with complete sincerity and honesty. "Edress eny comment or complaint to the Essessins' Guild. Preferably in writing. You are left-hended? Pity. Now, cless. I hev taken my knife. The first step is to cut through the bolt just beneath the head"

"_Aaaaaaargh!"_

"End return her purse to Miss Venturi, although she does not deserve to get it beck, es she was so inettentive. Clean the blood off thet, end put it eway! Now we cen pull the sheft of the bolt out from the other side…"

"_Aaaaaaargh!"_

"End the next step is to clean the wound with a strong disinfecting solution. Luckily I hev one in my first-aid kit. This will sting…"

"_Aaaaaaargh!"_

"End es the wound hes ceased bleeding, we may bandage it up. Good shooting, by the wey, Miss Rossendale. By five o'clock tonight you will show me thet you heve reshefted and refledged this bolt-head. You were shown how to do it in Creft, end you heve _no_ excuses."

Leaving the pale and shaky Thief, Johanna advised the class she was going into the leopard cage with Mr Schmendrick and Mr Gritchlow, and she wished for no more silly distractions. Em I _heard_, yesno?

Walking without fear and trusting in her own senses backed up by the golem, she toured the leopard enclosure counting heads. The animals, recently fed and lazy, watched her through well-fed eyes and decided she was not a threat.

"Five, Mr Schmendrick?"

"Definitely Five, Miss Smith-Rhodes." agreed the golem. "But Yesterday, I Definitely Counted Six".

"I don't doubt you. When you saw six leopards, wes there enything _strange_ ebout one? Something thet seemed wrong, out of place?"

Johanna had a peculiar tingling suspicion.

"There Were…. Human Eyes. In An Animal Face. It Was Watching Me, But Not As An Animal Watches."

She nodded. They were approaching the shelter at the back of the enclosure, where the animals could retreat from Ankh-Morpork weather. Johanna walked slowly and carefully around it, reading the sign.

"Something was buried here not long ago." she said. She recalled Angua's relief at having a partner who was prepared to carry her clothes, to be there and preserve her modesty when she Changed back. And a female partner, who could handle her underwear in a matter-of-fact way, without getting pervy about it.

"End it wes buried by a human. Those ere hendprints."

"No Labourers Nor Human Staff Have Been Here For A Long Time, Miss Smith-Rhodes"

Johanna squatted down. She reached down and picked up a button, wrenched off as something dressed. _Or Changed. Paws can scoop out a shallow trench and kick soil over whatever someone thought fit to bury here. But they are not as dextrous for buttons - or for digging - as an opposed thumb. _

She looked further.

"Those marks in the earth here were made by a two-legged enimel. Footprints here. They cerry on, on the other side, where somebody climbed this fence end leapt down on the other side."

Johanna surveyed the Dwarf-invented chain link fence, which consisted of interlocking wires pulled tightly in opposing directions until the whole took on a hexagonal appearance.

_So clever and economic of materials. And when you think about it, a logical development from chain-mail for the person. _

"Mr Gritchlow, please employ several gargoyles es quickly es you cen. Position them on the chimpanzee house, end high up in the reptile house, where this spot mey be kept under observation. The were-leopard mey return."

"Were-leopard, miss?"

"Like a werewolf, only Howondalandian, end just as deadly. Be careful and do not confront her."

They returned to the main public area, the golem ponderously unlocking and locking the double gate behind them.

A breathless pupil ran to her.

"Well?" she asked, not in the best of moods.

"Please, miss. Professor Stibbons wants you. He's found something you need to know."

* * *

The three surviving leopards stayed in the Den, unhappily, the smoke and ash of he fire still in their noses. Two of them tried to get as far away from the third as they could, as the third was showing distinct signs of madness. Were he in animal form and had a tail to lash, Emmanuel N'Juri would be prowling and lashing it. Naked but for his loincloth, the vivid welts of the whip showing up on his human skin, his eyes glittering, he had clearly crossed an invisible line and was now intent on declaring war on the entire white race, of killing as many of them as possible.

Anthony N'Kima and Blessing Mutheleze huddled in fear and hurt and loss, grieving for Elizabeth, either dead or a prisoner, and in Anthony's case feeling bereft of guidance and the nearest thing to a kindly paternal hand they had known, now all the Witch-Finders were dead.

Blessing whimpered at intervals, from the pain of the grazing wound Johanna's crossbow bolt had inflicted, which stretched from shoulder to hip. Anthony still felt discomfort from his buttock wound, which had by now almost healed. _But now they are dead there will be no more healing. And the Ambassador, by all accounts, has come to an accommodation with Them now he is free to do so. Which leaves us under the leadership of a maniac who has lost touch with reality. _

Anthony, like the rest, had been told that this may well turn out to be a one-way trip and that they would likely die for the glory of the Paramount.

Now he was here, he wasn't so sure. Now the Witch-Finders who had prepared him for a glorious death were in their turn dead, he was doubting it. Anthony N'Kima was thinking treasonous, dangerous, thoughts.

What sort of accommodation could he make for himself if he lived? He had heard the word, spat out like a curse: _defection._

But he didn't care. With the world closing in on him, he so wanted to live. And he had no close family at Home for Them to work their vengeance on.

Blessing whimpered again. He squeezed her hand. The three were-leopards waited, silently and grimly, for night and moonrise.

* * *

Back at the Guild, Johanna sought out friends and colleagues. Her mind raced around various ideas. She had sent Ponder to the Watch with the definitive proof that these people were were-leopards. His noted had been meticulous:

_They are not born were-animals like werewolves. _

_Rather, they are taken from their families at age seven and made to live like animals, to eat raw meat, to run on all fours, to dance like leopards. _

_Powerful rituals are performed around them to draw them closer and closer to the goal._

_They are also schooled in using human weapons, and to move and strike quickly and silently in human form. They are , in effect, native Assassins. _

_At age fourteen, or the onset of adulthood, they face the last ordeal. Opinion is divided as to whether real leopards come out the jungle to the call and willingly sacrifice themselves to become at least partly human – or whether the power of the last ritual summons spirits in leopard form, who then indwell the Leopard Society member. _

_In either case, the leopard and the human become as one and the successful aspirant my take either form. _

_In some extreme cases, a Black Panther comes from the jungle and answers the call, finding a human as ruthless and evil and conscience-free as it can, to absorb into. Such pairings produce leaders and members of the Black Panthers, a society within a society. But these are shunned and feared as accursed and a thing of evil. _

_Members may Change at will, but find it easier as the Moon grows to full. At full moon change must happen, as with werewolves. _

_As with werewolves, silver and fire kill them with no hope of resurrection. Certain plants of the deep jungle act as inhibitors and are actively inimical to them. _

_A female were may mate either with animal or human as she chooses, and bear either kittens or human babies. Indeed, a litter often contains both and childbirth is hard, sometimes fatal. It is reported that no true weres are born this way, and the litter always contains what are termed "yennorks", were they werewolf. But the cubs of such a union are leopards who are partly human, and humans who are partly leopard. The human children are invariably conscripted to the Society at age seven as they make better candidates. _

Johanna went first to her colleague Davinia Bellamy, the botany mistress, who heard her out in silence.

"Vinnie, you know Howondalandian plents ten times better then I do!" she said. "Hev you ever heard or come across enything with a legend like this atteched to it?"

Davinia frowned.

"Well, the names people give plants have significance" she said. "Take common wolfsbane, for instance. So called because people here noticed it poisons wolves. And werewolves, some to that. Wolves avoid it like the plague."

Johanna had heard Davinia had prevented Angua from coming near her, during her arrest, with a well-placed wolfsbane bomb. She nodded, appreciatively. Facing down a werewolf like that and throwing the bomb at the very last minute had required _cool_. **(2)**

"Now there is such a thing as _Ligularia Dentata_. From Howondaland, it's called the leopard plant. The anecdotes surrounding it include the idea that a native wearing a garland of the plant will be immune to leopard attack. Apparently a former Paramount King tested this one scientifically. Hungry leopards refused to go near a convicted criminal who was wearing a paste made from the ground-up plants."

Johanna nodded.

"It works, then?"

On leopards, yes. Shame about the hungry lions, really. Look, I did say the Paramount King tested it out _scientifically_, didn't I?"

"Do you have eny?"

"Down in the hothouses. I can see where your mind's going on this one. How much do you need?"

"As much es you can spare. End whet sort of plent is asafoetida?"

"Relative of common garlic, stinks, cultivated in Genua where it's prized as a food flavouring. Once you're past the smell, it has a certain savour! As a matter of interest, Johanna, some commentators believe that the whole "garlick-wards-off-vampires" thing is a mis-translation of an old Latatian scroll where the word for "garlic" was confused with the word for "asafoetida". It's _asafoetida _that really wards off vampires. But the vampires themselves keep quiet about it, in the hope nobody realises."**(3)**

"Got eny**?"**

"Not mature, I'm afraid. I gave my last batch to Joan for her special cookery classes. Apparently it also wards off werewolves. But given the smell, any sane creature would want to give up and become a vegetarian or a Black Ribboner!"

Johanna thanked her, and went on to speak to Mr Mericet about an idea she had.

The veteran Poisons and Inimical Alchemy teacher looked at her with a new respect.

"A most provocative idea, Miss Smith-Rhodes. Let me answer you with an illustration. For thouands of years, the human race has known that an infusion of beech bark is a sovereign remedy for headaches. But it is only within the last fifty years, with considerable advances made in true alchemy, that we have become aware that the acetylsalicylic acid which may be derived from beech bark is an _even better_ remedy for headaches and may be precisely measured and delivered.

In the same way, we may presume that in a pre-alchemical age when all people knew was the metallic element, it became common knowledge that silver is poisonous to and kills werewolves.

"But today, we have alchemy. Let me draw you another picture. The elemental gas chlorine, Cl2, will kill pitilessly and remorselessly. If subjected to too much for to long, the subject dies a terrible death over a period of weeks or months. From our point of view, grossly inefficient. But the chlorine gas compound _phosgene_, COCl2, will slay in les than an hour. We are having exciting results, at least in theory, with complex chlorine compounds derived from certain tree frogs, the so-called _nerve gases, _which inhume in mere seconds. The compound is a more efficient killer than the element, and this builds up exponentially with each new step.

" I see no reason why the alchemical compounds of silver will not be even more lethal to a werewolf than the elemental metal. In the interests of avenging the attack on the Guild, miss Smith-Rhodes, I can prepare for you half a pound of the most common silver compound, silver nitrate. Silver sulphide may be as noxious owing to its sulphur content. There is also silver fulminate, which is a most potent explosive but not normally used in exothermic alchemy because of its cost."

Johanna found herself sketching out a design.

"Silver fulminate is unstable and explosive, yes? So a small test-tube pecked with the stuff, surrounded by a mass of silver nitrate or silver sulphide powder, in a fragile gless container, so thet throwing it detonates the fulminate end showers the silver nitrate all over the target…"

Mericet laughed, the laugh of a man who is happy in his work and against all the odds, has been shown a new trick.

"I can build these for you! Silver nitrate grenades! Please advise me of their effects! I commend your mind. Most original thinking! Most devious!"

Making arrangements to pick her bombs up later, Johanna made her third call, to Emmanuelle –Marie Lapoignard les Deux-Épées in her metalwork room. She took a spare set of armour with her and a quiver of crossbow bolts.

She found Emmanuelle bent over her favourite sword, where an unhealthy looking patina was still spreading from the tip.

"Johanna, cherie, I have tried everything." she wailed. "But still this eczema of ze metal spreads! I have seen nothing like it before! I wish I knew where it came from."

Johanna tried to look sorrowful.

"You mey yet hev to… emputate." she said, gravely.

"And turn my favourite, my precious, my lovely, sword into a long poignard! We go back a long way, my sword and I!"

_Emmie could not have been more distraught if she'd been told a parent had died_, Johanna thought.

"I think I cen help" Johanna said, uncertainly.

"Then tell, _chere amie_!"

"Have you tried scrubbing it with soap? After ell, you held it to the neck of Nobby Nobbs the other night. Remember?"

"_Ma foi! _That dirty grubby insanitary little Watchman? That diseased gnome of a gendarme?"

"Nobby has this effect on eny metal thet touches him." Johanna said, straight-faced and trying not to laugh. "It mysteriously ternishes. Try soap, which he shuns like a troll shuns sunlight."

Sceptically, Emmanuelle tried rubbing liquid hand-soap into the blade. She suddenly gasped.

"_Tres chere amie!_ You were right! The soap that Nobbs avoids has killed his metal disease! It fades and vanishes! _Regardes_!"

"Tell me. There is a contract on Nobbs, is there not?"

"There is, but use an old sword. End it's only for fifty pence. I believe it was posted es a joke."

She breathed in, a gesture which caused boys in her class to seek cold showers later.

"_Eh bien_, Nobbs is safe, then. But I owe you a favour, _chere amie!"_

"_Kiff!" _said Johanna, and tipped out the armour and the crossbow bolts. "I went ell this to be silver-plated. I'm loading for were-creature!"

* * *

**(1) **Another of those universal laws, even if the school is one where intelligent juvenile larvae are educated by prawn-like sentient adult creatures in a sub-aquan civilisation in a deep sea kept liquid by geological activity, several miles under the permanent icecap on the frozen outer moon of Neptune. When thirty of them hop into a _squeedaddl _drawn by two _niquitha _for an educational trip to the _qal'z,_ their teachers will seek to avoid escort duty with the best of them.

**(2) **See my story_**Murder most 'Orrible. **_

**(3) **In Roundworld folklore and magic, such as it is, this may really be the case. Horror novel author Denis Wheatley holds that asafoetida is inimical to all evil spirits, and Aleister Crowley used an asafoetida paste in his Temples to ward off things of evil. It really is used in West Indian and Cajun cookery, and it really stinks. I have a memory of Bram Stoker's _**Dracula,**_ where van Helsing seals Lucy Westenra's bedroom weindow with a garlic and asafoetida paste to prevent Dracula getting in.


	12. The end of the hunt

_**Whys and Weres 12**_

**Book Review: **_**The works of Hwel the Dwarf discovered in Leonard of Quirm, **_**by the Right Hon John Thomas Purdeigh.**

**By our literary correspondent, Tuppence Swivel. **

**In which the grandson of the renowned explorer seeks to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the dramatic plays ascribed to the Dwarf, Hwel of Copperhead, were in fact written by the notorious polymath Leonard of Quirm. **

**Mr Purdeigh stakes his case on reiterating that a mere dwarf, from a species devised by Nature to hew coal and ore up to a mile below ground, could not possibly have the education, the breeding, the literary talent nor the experience of the human nobility required to write breathtakingly erudite plays such as **_**Starcrossed, It Happened on a Midsummer's Evening, **_or _**The Tragedie of Felmet, King of Lancre (**_**known as**_** "The Lancre Play" **_**to our theatrical community, who endearingly believe it is bad luck to speak the full name of the play within the precincts of the theatre).**

**No, Mr Purdeigh, a man I fear is destined to be as great a literary critic as his grandfather was an explorer, devotes five hundred densely argued pages to the treatise that the true author is Leonard of Quirm. **

**This is despite Leonard's frequent heartfelt denials that he has ever had anything to do with Hwel's plays, and despite the fact that Hwel himself is on record as saying "whose signature is that at the bottom of the bloody page, then? Whose bloody handwriting is that? Do I write bloody backwards with my left hand? Look, I don't claim to design spacecraft and submarines and all sorts of interesting gizmos and Leonard very reasonably doesn't claim to have written my sodding plays!"**

**A point of view supported by Mr Olwyn Vittoler, Hwel's employer and long-time friend, who said to me **

"**Look, Tuppence, old boy, it wasn't a balding human genius with unkempt grey hair who was seated in the back of the wagon, knocking them out in all places and weathers. Or I might perhaps have **_**noticed**_** if it wasn't the old lawn-ornament here, don't you think! Another port in this glass, old chap? I can see the bar through it!"**

**I do not think we can delay ourselves for too long on this entertaining but fundamentally flawed hypothesis, but for those who insist, Goatberger and Croppers Publishers are selling it for nine dollars ninety-nine.**

_**Editor's Note: Mr Vittoler has earned his right to a degree of friendly familiarity with his playwright Hwel after forty years of sharing the privations and hazards of touring the hinterlands with a company of travelling players. For the rest of us, we might well choose to think long, hard, and carefully before using the phrase "lawn ornament" to a Dwarfish friend, as the reaction might indicate you were not as close a friend as you hitherto **_**thought**_** you were. (WdW)**_

_**On Other Pages: **_

"_**Look, we've knocked a sodding great hole in their wall! What are you waiting for? Boys from Morpork never shirked a fight before! Get in there!"**_

**The first night of Hwel's latest play "Cirone The Fifth" at the Dysk Theatre – a review;**

**Letters Page: Miss Estrella Partleigh of the Campaign for Equal Heights weighs into the Hwel/Leonard debate;**

Johanna Smith-Rhodes smiled and put the Times down. It was growing more and more likely that tonight would see the final showdown with the remaining were-leopards. What she was currently doing might surprise external observers. But with all the preparations made for the fight, she saw nothing wrong and plenty of advantage in relaxing at her hairdressers', letting Conina and her beauticians tidy up all the bits that she, Johanna, could barely find time to do more than the minimum with. She was aware that occasionally sharing a bed with a man meant she had to raise some of her standards from "adequate" to "best", for one thing: she'd been single for so long that having to think more deeply about things like pedicures, for instance, represented a whole new girly world for her.

Besides, it was relaxing, if ticklish, to have somebody work on your feet and keep them looking good. Up until now, foot care had been a matter of regular washing, keeping her toenails clipped, using rather brutal self-medication to deal with blisters, and not worrying about a lifetime of callous on the heels, ag, it served to cushion a long twenty-mile march. What mattered was that if your feet weren't fit for the march, you were not fit for _anything._ Keeping them clean and in good order was important: until she'd met Ponder, aesthetics had barely registered. Now she wanted every part of herself to look good, as well as functional. She was discovering, belatedly, that feet were not just propulsive mechanisms attached to your ankles.

At the other end, the salon staff who'd drawn the satisfying job were working on her long luxuriant red hair, Conina herself in attendance.

Next to her, Angua von Überwald reclined, having much the same things done to her. Johanna was paying for both of them: as they'd be sharing the same risks on the street later it felt like a good idea to share a bit of quality relaxation time first. Besides, Conina was close to highly placed people in the Thieves' Guild and was a good channel of information. Conina was being more than usually candid this afternoon.

"I've seen more feminine feet on a veteran sergeant-major!" she burst out. "Where have you _been _with these? No, don't tell me. You were running barefoot round the family farm for the first ten years of your life and resented having to wear shoes, right? Which is how you get to have soles like leather . Then it was…"

"The T'set'se National Park. The Matahari Desert. The Rhodesian jungle".

"Rhodesia." said Conina, flatly.

"Named efter my great-grandfather. He conquered the bleddy place end named it efter himself. Telk ebout en ego!"**(1)**

"Well, it'll be a long time before those things on the ends of your legs are fit for strappy summer sandals, my girl! Forget pumice stones, I need the whole _volcano_ for those heels!"

"Do your best. Oh, and no strong-smelling shampoos, please. We hev a tough job tonight !"

Conina nodded, understanding. As a trained Thief, she knew the smell of perfume or strong shampoo could give you away when otherwise perfectly concealed. So did Assassins. Johanna had used this to drive home a lesson to some of her more vain girl students, when on night concealment lessons: follow the smell of expensive Quirmian perfume and you detect an otherwise impeccably concealed student Assassin.

"And as for _you_" Conina added, turning her attention to Angua, "_Try_ not to Change in my salon. You're the only client on my list I have to subcontract Grace Speaker to, for one week out of four!"

Pet shop owner Grace Speaker did a healthy side-trade in dog-grooming. Angua grinned, understanding, then relaxed into her pampering.

"What's the word in the Guild?" Angua asked. Conina Harebut, a master thief who in her time had once stolen the Arch-chancellor's Hat from the University**(2)**, smiled mirthlessly.

"After the Yarrow murder, everyone's jumpy. The word is Boggis has gone to see Queen Molly and Rosie Palm and they're all going to see Vetinari about the Watch seemingly not doing anything about these random murders."

"But we _are_! We got one of them last night!"

"And you missed the other three, Boggis said."

Conina sighed. "You know Boggis, he never misses a chance to snipe at the Watch. Queen Molly is more understanding, but she'll make the point, like Rosie Palm, that her Guild members are vulnerable because a lot of them tend to be out on the streets in all weathers. A gang of serial-killing leopards targeting street people is going to be a big concern for both of them. Rosie has got the Aunts on the case and both the Thieves and the Beggars will have people out in force. Their own enforcers and observers."

OK, so we tracked them down to Seven Sleepers from the Tump" Angua said. But just try locating them in the press of people around a big fire with the glare of the fire in your eyes and its stink in your nose. Can't be done, even with these nostrils."

"Are you patrolling the Tump again tonight?" asked Conina.

"And neighbouring streets, yes. It worked the other night, and Mr Vimes is keen to keep the Kwa'Zulu embassy under observation."

_Now would be a nice time, _Johanna thought_, to brief Angua on the new kit I'll be carrying. She may not like some of it and Mr Vimes might forbid me to carry it. But she needs to know. _

"Leopard grass." Angua said, doubtfully.

"It should not effect you, in the same wey I do not enticipete wolfsbane might effect them.. But we will both be wearing discreet garlands of leopard gress."

"OK. What other little tricks has the Guild come up with?"

Johanna swiftly explained about the silver nitrate bombs. She stressed that she would give Angua adequate warning if she intended to use one, and that Angua should leave the scene immediately and not return until the area was judged safe for her.

Angua had once stood within six feet of Otto Chriek and felt unaccountably tired, sick and weak as if something were poisoning her. Otto had then remembered he was trialling a new true camera, which depended for its efficency on the reaction of light with a thin layer of silver nitrate held in gum. He had more of the new silver nitrate film-plates in a light-proof bag just here near your feet, Sergeant…. **(3) **Angua had retreated to a safe distance away, now knowing why a werewolf iconographer would find it as injurious a profession as a vampire. In her case, it wouldn't be the flashlight, it would be the nature of the film.

Angua noted that Otto, in deference to her, had experimented, and discovered that lining the carrying box with lead foil had prevented the signal or the contagion affecting her, and that she could stand as close as she liked provided the box were closed.

"Just keep them in a lead-lined box when you aren't using them." Angua requested. "Mr Vimes should let you get away with it tonight, and while I know I'm not the target, he'll have some opinions to express to Lord Downey about the Guild developing weapons that could kill a werewolf. After tonight, Johanna, if these things work, Mr Vimes is going to put them in the same category as _gonnes _and _one-shots_. And do you really need me to tell you to be bloody careful where you throw them?"

The moment Emmanuelle had finished silver-plating her spare armour, and it was ready to accept paint, Johanna had industriously painted it black so as to be indistinguishable from her regular set. The paint would be dry by the time they went on patrol. Any were-leopard pouncing on her was going to _sizzle_ on the barbecue of silver armour which would come as a nasty shock. But she wanted them to _see _the silver-plated heads on her crossbow bolts…

"Oh, end Engua? There's something I need to tell you ebout my ermour thet I consider you will need to know…"

Johanna walked back to the Guild via the Isle of Dogs to equip and arm herself for the night. On the way, she noticed a commotion near the Dysk Theatre. As a naturalised resident of Ankh-Morpork, she had come to see the entertainment value of street theatre, and paused, shouldering her way through the crowd with Assassin-confidence. A huge drover looked down, glowered, then recognised her profession, smiling embarrassedly and tipping his hat to her. She smiled back. It was _nice_ when people were polite.

She saw a massive and very dead walrus, with human legs and arms sticking out from under it. The fat, florid, theatre-owner Olwyn Vittoler was running about proclaiming

"Nobody touches those tusks! They're _ours_! I'm defraying that ivory for theatre expenses!"

"_His bar bill_, he means!" hissed a very obvious theatrical, one of a group of actors who was standing to one side watching the singular corpse. Corporal Nobby Nobbs was industrially drawing a chalk circle around the mingled bodies. He looked up.

"Oh, hello, miss!" he said, pleasantly.

"Need a hend, Nobby?" she inquired.

"Kind of you to ask, miss, what with you being a Special and all, but Visit's around somewhere… Visit! Will you stop handing those bloody pamphlets out and come here and do a bit of policing?"

"It's a very good one. On the depraved and ungodly nature of theatrical performance!"

"You want to come down the Blue Cat, lovey. We'll show you depraved and ungodly, innit right, girls?" said an actor. He was partly in costume for playing Lady Felmet, and looked as if he had been born to drag.

"But whet happened?"

"I dunno, miss. The lad underneath, right, is allegedly Kevin Rantagh, the top actor. Apparently he said something as he shouldn't as he was stepping out of the theatre, right, and this dirty big seal comes right out of the sky and hits him on the head. Talk about _unlucky_."

Johanna thought.

"And is one of the current pleys a sort of… tragedy…. set in a small kingdom in the foothills of the Remtop Mountains?"

"Oh, you mean _Felmet, King of Lancre_, miss?"

The theatricals screamed and scattered as a crashing noise came from further up Broadway, and a loose cartwheel ran through the crowd at some speed, bowling over a luckless actor who lay immobile. Nobby nodded, reflectively.

"Funny thing is, miss, it don't matter how many times you or I say _Felmet, King of Lancre _outside the theatre, it's only the actors who get the bad luck. Strange, innit?"

"_Will you stop saying that!" _shouted Vitoller.

"Say what, sir?"

"That… play! The Lancre Play!"

"Felmet, King of Lancre?"

It had been one of Harry King's nightsoil carts that had crashed higher up Broadway. Johanna judged where the skittering barrel was going to be when its lid fell off, and made sure she was somewhere else. Vitoller and the actors did not notice until it was too late. Fortunately, when narrative causality decrees an subtle joke will happen, it is appeased by the event and does not seek for the greatest quantity of the most noxious substance. The barrel was less than half-full, and then only of liquid. It was pursued by two gnolls, who were just too late to prevent the inevitable.

With immense dignity, Vitoller marshalled his squealing actors and led them in the direction of the dressing-rooms.

_Eina! That must have hurt! _she thought. She turned her attention to the walrus, which was, sadly, very dead. _Pity. I could have rigged up a holding tank at the Zoo._

"How did this get here?"

"Search me, miss. One of them birds what stoops to the water and fishes must have picked it up out at sea, but lost its grip over the city. Million to one chance it lands on an actor bloke what's just said _Felmet, King of Lancre _when he come out the theatre, innit?"

"You would need a very big bird!"

"Onna them rocks, maybe? _No, no, not trolls!_ A rock issa bloody big bird, right, wingspan the size of the opera house, they say some still live up in the Ramtops!"

Johanna smiled, and walked on towards the Guild. She paused after a few steps, remembering.

"Nobby?"

"Yes, miss?"

"Stay clear of Madame Deux-Épées for a few weeks, would you? It's for the best!"

* * *

And now, armed, equipped and with Ruth N'Kweze as her assistant to hold a case full of fragile silver nitrate bombs, Johanna is up on the higher slopes of the Tump, waiting for the onset of true dark and moonrise, to hopefully bring the battle with the were-leopards to a final conclusion. She is wearing what looks like her usual black enamelled armour, although closer examination of a kind an Assassin does not normally permit her client will reveal this armour is cruder, older, dented, scored, and has been roughly painted gloss black by somebody not fully at home with a paintbrush. She also has a garland of dark green leaves at her neck, as do Angua and Ruth. Angua is keeping a safe distance from the cheerful red-haired Assassin, abstractedly pulling at the leathery dark green leaves, neither repelled nor attracted by the dark earthy smell they emit when crushed. The news that there is now, officially, another were-species known on the Disc has depressed her spirits somewhat.

_But we are born as true weres. From the briefing I got, I gather they somehow have to learn it and cannot have were-children. _

This was somehow a comfort to her.

_Tonight will end it._

* * *

Captain Carrot waited in the corridor outside the mortuary with Constable Jolson and Sergeant Littlebottom. Cheery was conspicuously wearing her heirloom silver chainmail, now that she knew she was dealing with an equally pitiless were-creature. She also held her Watch axe in both hands.

"Not long now." Carrot said, consulting a pocket-watch. He loosened his sword in its scabbard. They waited in the corridor, Jolson holding the net borrowed from Special Constable Hancock, who had been delighted that Captain Carrot thought he had come up with a good idea. Thus far, the only person he had managed to trap in it had been Special Constable Piggle, who in the gloomy night he had mistaken for a were-leopard. He had thrown the net and trapped his target first time, and had had to be restrained by two other Watchmen from going in with the trident, to finish off the hysterically screaming and swearing Piggle.

And then there was sound, first a scraping, then an enraged animal hiss, then a scrabbling as of claws against ceramic which had a grating fingernails-down-a-blackboard quality to it.

"You Are Under Arrest. Do Not Resist." said a patient golem voice. The animal screamed again.

Carrot and his party ran into the mortuary to witness Dorfl, patiently and firmly holding a flat-eared screaming leopard as if it were a domestic cat. Its hindlegs struggled and pin-wheeled as it attempted to gain its freedom. Jolson stepped forward with the net, backed by Cheery. And then…

"Ugggh." said Carrot. "Now I know why Angua makes us turn away during this bit."

With one Golem firmly holding her upper body and a second restraining her legs, an attractive and nearly-naked Zulu girl hung limply between them, all fight gone now she knew she could not escape in either form. She was barefoot, and wore only a leopard-skin loincloth, with headband, anklets and wristlets of leopard skin.

Carrot wondered for the briefest second why Angua came back naked from wolf-form, but this girl's leopardskin crossed with her.

_Of course. They aren't born to it, like Angua. Those items must be key to the transformation. _

She hissed at him.

"If you cannot speak Morporkian, I can have an interpreter here within the hour." he said.

She nodded, abruptly.

"I understand. Or the Embassy would not have sent me here."

"Good. You are…" he flipped a mental coin. "you are Blessing M'Thuleze, of Zululand. I must now advise you that you are under arrest for the murders of Augustus Yarrow, Damien Boggins, and Greta Tomelty. You are further accused of conspiracy to murder His Excellency Ambassador Pieter van der Graaf and his wife, resident at the Rimwards Howondaland Embassy on Scoone Avenue. You are also accused of conspiracy to murder Miss Johanna Smith-Rhodes, resident at the Guild of Assassins on Filigree Street, and of assaulting, with intent to murder, Miss Gillian Lansbury of the same address. You are further accused of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm on Mr Alfred Maroon, of Dolly Sisters, and criminal damage at the Guild of Assassins. You are not obliged to say anything now but anything you do say will be recorded and taken into consideration."

"I am Blessing M'Thuleze, yes. I also have diplomatic immunity."

"My policewomen will search you. If you have any papers on your body proving you to be a diplomat, then the case passes to Lord Vetinari at the Palace, who will no doubt consider that he has no option other than to return you to the Embassy. "

Carrot smiled.

"But His Lordship goes to bed early and values what little sleep he takes. I for one will not be waking him up over something we can deal with in the morning. And if you do not have diplomatic papers on you, then you remain in my cell."

"Do we handcuff her, sir?" Precious Jolson asked.

Carrot shook his head.

"A waste of effort, constable, as all she'd need to do to slip the cuffs is to turn into leopard form for a few seconds. We do, however, have _these_."

Carrot took something from his pocket. It looked like a simple, but thick, leather collar.

"Constable Jolson, I want to do everything by the book here. I'd rather you or Sergeant Littlebottom physically touch a female prisoner. Would you put this on her neck for me?"

Blessing screamed and struggled as Precious buckled the collar on her.

"It's a double layer of leather with a long strip of silver sewn into it." Carrot said, pleasantly. "What you call _moon-metal._ We're not cruel, miss. No silver is exposed, so it will not burn you. But you will feel it nearby and know it's there."

He had recalled what Angua had said about being a prisoner aboard a Klatchian ship, where in wolf-form, a silver collar had been slipped onto her neck, weakening her and depriving her of the ability for rational thought.**(4)** Above all, it had prevented her from Changing: it had locked her in wolf form until she had figured out a way of removing it. Mr Vimes had approved and paid for a dozen such collars earlier today, created at Tuttle Scropes' leatherworking shop from one of his, er, _standard designs_, and several coppers out on the were-leopard hunt elsewhere also carried them.

"Now we handcuff her, constable. I also want lightweight ankle manacles and a chain connecting wrists to ankles, so she can't reach to take the collar off. I want you to take her into a cell, strip-search her, and remove everything she is wearing to go into safe custody."

"No!" the girl screamed.

Headband, anklets, bracelets, and, er…"

"Very good, sir" said Cheery. "We can find her a prison uniform to protect her modesty?"

"Good idea, sergeant. We can make _this_ leopard change her shorts!"

Blessing M'Thuleze, head slumped, dazed by the proximity of Cheery's silver mailcoat, went tamely into captivity.

* * *

And now there were three.

The attack came out of the dark, taking Johanna by surprise.

The black panther sprang screaming at her, seeking to bowl her over and onto the ground.

_Ag, he's good! _she thought, instinctively presenting a vambraced left forearm to the beast's jaws. As the large cat bowled her down, she was reaching for a dagger with her right hand, wincing with the pain as she felt the crunch of its jaws on her arm. She forced herself past the pain, dragging its head down towards the leopard grass on her neck, and stabbing upwards with the dagger in her right arm. It was the first time she had used the defensive technique against large wild animals that she had outlined to Vimes and Angua some days before.

She was pleased her conditioning worked well, but consternated by two things.

Firstly, the relative ease with which the thing crunched right through the metal on her left arm. She felt the metal buckle and distort, felt shards of it being driven into her flesh along with the panther's teeth.

_Ag! Next time I use a thicker vambrace!_

And she felt her knife penetrate the creature's belly. But to her consternation, she could push it no further in than a quarter of an inch.

_And a better blade! _

She belatedly remembered the fetish charm the thing was said to wear, Maybe if she dropped her useless knife and reached up, she could wrench the charm off…

And then the thing screamed, opening its jaws full. She could see the burning and blistering around its mouth and gums. She felt a sizzling from in front of her. The black paint on vambrace and armoured breastplate was peeling, scorching and burning away to expose the silverplate underneath. She saw the burns on the animal's chest. Saw it writhe, scream, turn human, and begin running… she was yelling for a bomb, but Ruth shook her head. Angua was pursuing a fleeing black man.

"Johanna. Your arm!"

Johanna looked at the twisted and wrecked vambrace.

"Fire the rockets for Wetch support!" she said, briskly. "A red end a green together."

Red meant _assistance required_.

Green stood for _Watchman down. Medical assistance needed_.

"Let me help" said Ruth.

"No. There ere still two of them out there. If they etteck while you ere tending my injury we ere both in trouble. Engua needs support for the same reason. _Ag_, dogs chase _everything_! You stend guard while I check myself out."

Johanna steeled herself to consider removing the wreck of the vambrace. She felt blood trickling down into her palm. She was sure some shards had punctured deep. If an artery or vein had gone, she was in a spot of trouble and ideally needed an Igor. Besides, she was reasonably sure of a broken bone. The vambrace was as good as a splint right now. And the bloodflow was not an arterial gush nor the steady _spurt-spurt_ of a vein.

The rain started to fall, slowly, steadily and persistently. Johanna bound bandages around the wound, over the agony of the vambrace, knowing that to take it off would be like removing a barbed arrow the wrong way – it would open larger wounds, maybe even sever tendons and major blood vessels in passing. At least this way, she might be good for _one _crossbow shot, before excruciating pain made her lower the weapon. But it had to be the right shot at the right target.

A broomstick swished down. A figure hopped off the pillion.

"Who's hurt?"

It was the Watch Igor. Johanna presented her wounded arm.

"Pilot? Go chase Engua. She hed a rush of blood to the wolf-brain end went chasing. She may need essistance!"

Air Policewoman Olga Romanoff indicated understanding and went off again.

"Hold that lamp" Igor requested. He opened his medical bag.

"You were wise not to take this off" he said. I'm going to cut the leather hinges… there…. so it's in two halves. Support the bottom one for me, please, while I work on the upper half… oh yes, two deep punctures."

Johanna tried not to shudder at the pain of the probe. More watchmen arrived. She felt easier.

It looks as if the canine teeth – odd they don't call them feline teeth for a leopard, isn't it? - have penetrated straight through the armour and forced roughly triangular pieces of metal about half an inch into your arm." Igor said. "I'm going to lift it off now… stand by…"

Johanna groaned. Fresh blood welled up.

"But we're lucky. No serious damage to tissues. I do suspect a radial fracture, though. You're not left-handed? Lucky. But you won't be using a bow for a while."

Igor repeated his careful examination on the other side.

"You're very lucky" he remarked. You'll have four scars from the canine teeth and this broken forearm to go easy on. It left some of its teeth in the metal, look!"

"Beg them up es evidence".

Igor laughed as he cleaned, stitched and reset. Hot water arrived and fast-setting plaster of Quirm bandages were shaped and applied. Despite her protests, her arm was put into a sling.

"Are you fit to accompany us?"

It was Vimes.

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. We're going into the City. I'll need you. And in case of any misunderstandings…"

Vimes glared right into her eyes. She tried not to blink.

"I'm allowing use of those…special….weapons _just this once_. It's an extraordinary situation and I want what you people call maximum prejudice. But when you get back to the Guild, tell Downey from me that _silver nitrate grenades_ are right up there on the banned list, along with _gonnes_ and _one-shots_. Any Assassin going loaded for werewolf in my city will find their feet don't touch. Got it? Good. Now let's get those bloody cats!"

Vimes dividied up the twenty or so Watchmen who'd answered the rocket call and directed them back onto the city by various routes. Johanna, supported by Ruth, latched onto Vimes' party. She breathed deep and regular breaths to offset the shock of her wound, and was glad to be at the bottom of the Tump and find a street under her feet again: Wormwood Road, one of the side-streets leading to Brookless Avenue.

"Now we wait" said Vimes. "A good huntsman gets there first and waits. I've got a large presence near the Zulu Embassy so they can't get back through the front door or gardens. There are more Watchmen coming down behind them. Air Police are aloft tracking the bloody creatures and reporting back. They know everything I've got that can fly is up there and I'm betting it'll worry them. The only way into their Embassy is the side gate, just over _there_. Keep watching it. Ah. Here comes a report…"

An owl spiralled down, hooting. Johanna identified it as an Howondalandian Hunting Owl. She had a population at the Animal Management Unit's aviaries, and, satisfied the gnome wasn't going to be cruel to the chick, had sold Buggy Swires, on behalf of the Watch, an almost completely incubated egg. Now, ten months on, the Watch had night flying capacity.

The owl settled onto a convenient fence-post.

"Will ye gie the girl a moose?" its gnome pilot demanded. A detailed Watchman provided an obviously dead mouse, that the owl began to devour with some relish.

The newly-minted Sergeant Buggy Swires, Air Police, saluted.

"Yon pussycats are oan their wey, sir!" he said. "The vampire girl's using her bats, aye, to herd and steer them. Maximum fear and loathing, you see. I cannae fly too near it myself, and Johanna here steers weel clear…"

There was muted laughter from among the Watchmen.

"_Johanna_?" demanded Johanna.

The gnome sergeant looked abashed.

"Aye, weel, miss. She's got a temper and her plumage is the right sort of red, in a guid light, and she's frae Howondaland, and ye wouldnae want tae meet her at night…"

Johanna decided to accept it as a compliment. It was the only thing she could do.

And then the laughter had stopped. Three dark feline shapes had entered the mouth of the side-street, with noise and commotion converging on them from behind. They saw and smelt the Watch. Two of them stopped dead, but the third, maddened with fear and pursuit, roared and charged forward.

"Bomb! Quickly!" yelled Johanna. Dhe gauged the distance. Vimes called

"Surrender now. And you will not be hurt!"

It kept running, aiming itself at the side-gate to the Zulu Embassy that Johanna discovered she was defending. She hefted the bomb in her good hand, feeling its weight and its smooth glassy surface. A protuberance sticking out above the glass globe was, she know, the fuse.

"You have a last chance to surrender!"

The leopard, mad with fear and panic, kept running.

Johanna glanced at Vimes. He nodded. She let the distance close to thirty yards, then pitched the bomb overhand. For a second or two, nothing happened. She went to draw one of the silver-tipped crossbow bolts, a stabbing weapon of last resort. And then…

A dull roar and a red-orange explosion. A billowing black cloud erupted, completely enveloping the creature. Johanna tried not to breathe as a little of it washed back over her. There was an un human scream, tailing off to agonised choking. A figure writhed and changed and squirmed in the black mist. Then it fell, and became the hideously burned and very dead body of a young girl.

"Ouch!" said Vimes.

"Eina!" said Johanna, reverting to Vondalaans.

She heard a human voice screaming "_No!_" in pain and loss. It appeared to be the other leopard, which was cringing now into a frightened ball.

_He'll surrender. We can pick him up later. _

She turned to congratulate Ruth. But Ruth wasn't there.

"Baas –lady!" she heard a voice taunting her. She forced herself to look away from the wreck of Elizabeth N'Kimbli. Damn, damn, damn. The black panther hadn't even been spotted by the silver nitrate. _And Ruth had gone to him? _

"I have your black maid, look! And she is going to stay with me. Isn't that right, beautiful Ruth?"

Ruth did not seem in the least deterred by the fact Emanuel N'Juri's chest was a mass of horrific burns, and his lower face was frothing with burns and madness. He wore a loincloth of black pantherskin, with armlets, headband and wristlets of the same material. A brown leather pouch, pale against his black skin, hung at his neck.

"You are my man" Ruth said, dreamily. "I pledge to you. To be your loyal woman until the end of your days"

Jonanna staggered. It was the form of words used during a Zulu wedding.

"Good, Good. Here are my demands, Mr Policeman. Firstly, the Boor woman removes that noxious garland. And that silvered armour that caused me these wounds. Then I kill her."

"You've already broken her arm tonight!" Vimes burst out. "She'd be no match for you unarmed!"

"She is an Assassin, Mr Vimes." N'juri reminded him. "A formidable enemy up until the moment of their death!"

"And one of my bloody Watchwomen!" Vimes erupted.

Johanna deliberately took off the garland and threw it contemptuously at the panther-man, who evaded it easily.

"And after you kill miss Smith-Rhodes?"

"I wish for a flying carpet, with pilot. To fly us back to Howondaland."

Johanna looked across at Ruth. And realised. Ruth was using Assassin finger-sign. She read the message. She turned to the Watchman standing next to her, and shook her plastered arm from its sling.

_Just one shot. _

"Give me your crossbow!" she whispered, urgently.

"Ma'am? "

"Your bleddy _crossbow_!" she insisted.

Emmanuel N'Juri laughed.

"And what do you think you can achieve with that, Boor-lady? I will, I think, save your throat until last! I wish to humble the white oppressor! To hear her scream!"

N'Juri appeared to be having difficulty keeping one shape. Vimes, excitedly, remembered Wolfgang von Überwald, at the end, had gone that way. _He's insane. Just a different sort of bottle-covey. _

"Oh, forget her, my husband" Ruth said, soothingly, "We are married now, by tribal law and custom. Let us kiss to seal the arrangement…"

N'Juri stooped down, entranced by the girl he had fallen for, As their lips met, regardless of his blisters, Ruth's hand grabbed what it sought.

And she pulled the fetish loose that guaranteed him immunity from weapons.

"Now, Johanna! Now!" she screamed, breaking free, the pouch dangling from her fingers.

Ignoring the agony in her left arm, Johanna aimed and fired.

And a crossbow bolt found its mark.

A silver-plated crossbow bolt.

N'Juri died with her kiss as almost his last memory. Ruth knelt down next to him and sobbed quietly.

"I'm sorry, Emmanuel, I really am!" she said. "But you knew when you met me I was an Assassin!"

Johanna rested her good hand on Ruth's shoulder and bit back the red waves of pain.

"I'm going to need to get this bleddy arm reset." she said.

"HALT! Come no further!"

There was a man in the alley, a black man, dressed in a leopardskin loincloth with a headband, armlets and anklets of the same material.

He raised his hands in surrender.

"My name is Anthony N'Kimba" he said. "I have no wish to die. With humility and deep sorrow for my actions, I wish to request that the Government of Ankh-Morpork gives me political asylum. I will tell you all I know."

"Put one of the special collars on him, and cuff him!" Vimes dictated. "We'll get him before Vetinari in the morning!"

He paused, and lit a cigar.

"Well, I think that just wraps it up, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for your assistance. We'll convene at the Yard and write reports in the morning."

* * *

**(1) **Really true. On Roundworld, the territory of Zimbabwe, just north of South Africa, was conquered for the British Empire by freelance adventurer Cecil Rhodes, who then unilaterally named it _**Rhodesia**_ after himself. This was part of the chain of thought that inspired me to flesh out Terry Pratchett's under-developed character Miss Smith-Rhodes as the Discworld analogue of a Sed-Efrikkkan. Oh, and did I mention that Rhodesia's most notorious leader , when it was a white racist state, was called Ian _Smith_? "Smith-Rhodes" – what a pointer…..

**(2) **See Terry Pratchett's _**Sourcery**_, for the tale of barbarian hairdresser Conina.

**(3) **See my short story _**Small Medium, Large Problem**_

**(4) **See Terry Pratchett's _**Jingo. **_


	13. Ex Howondalandia semper aliquid nova

_**Whys and Weres 13**_

**Epilogues **

**1) 8,000 years ago, in the Überwaldean forests:-**

The young Candidates stood in the dark cold night, naked, but still trying to suppress shivers in the chilly deep-forest dark. Above them in the clearing, stars glimmered brightly in a night with only a half-moon. Normally there was continual noise and sound from the enveloping deep woodland, and the forest held terrors of its own for those who strayed too far from the tenuous foothold the Wolf-Clan had carved for itself. On this night there was nothing, save the throbbing of the drums and the occasional ritual chant.

Torn between fear and a sensation this was all going to be a disappointing waste of time, the fourteen-year-old girl Eng'Va looked around to see if she could make out the silhouettes of her friends, pallid and ghost-like in the uncertain moonlight.

Eng'Va tried to make herself into a stern ivory statue, like the other adolescents out there undergoing the Initiation, aware that out there, the senile and half-crazed clan Shaman was dancing and capering around the magic circle. She heard the tethered goat, the sacrifice for the night, braying with fear.

_Brothers! They come! They come! Sisters! They arrive! They are here! _

A high-pitched ululation of welcome rose from the Society members, who were somewhere out there in the dark singing and dancing welcome to their brothers and sisters emerging from the secrets of the deep forbidding forest.

The four neophytes tensed themselves, suppressing a desire to run as the five low sinuous shapes detached themselves from the jungle's edge. Two boys and two girls, naked and unarmed, faced their final test, one they had been trained to since earliest youth. Tonight was the culmination.

Eng'Va shook away the fear, bit her lip, and concentrated. Her long blonde hair, slick with sweat, flapped around her face. Behind her, the Shaman Wo-Tan, in his ritual skullcap and cloak made from the pelt of a wolf, shrieked

_Come, o sistern! Come forward, our brethren! Become as one with those who would be as you, yet remain human! Come forward!_

The drumming and the ululating grew louder. Eng'Va found her head swimming, expanding, re-shaping. The shapes closing unhurriedly with them became four wolves, sleek, fully-grown, killers of the forest night.

The wolf, a golden-haired female, welcomed her, bounding up her body with its forepaws reaching for her as if it were a semi-domesticated hound, of the sort who were safely shut up in the huts for this night.

_Was it barking a welcome? _

The creature reared up on its hind-legs, the feral stench of old meat coming from its mouth. It licked the girl's face with a rough but reassuring tongue.

_It is as was said. I am being welcomed. It has accepted me. _

Then the transition began. Eng'Va writhed in soundless pain, hearing a soundless roar, as the essences of woman and wolf met and merged.

She awoke with the dawn, one of four whole naked bodies lying in the grass. He was aware, in a groggy kind of way, of something having Changed. As the others awoke, groaning, she spat blood and shreds of raw flesh out of her mouth.

She looked over to an empty tether.

_I really hope that was only goat, _she thought.

Next to her on the earth laid an empty golden-haired wolf-skin, proof the wolf had sacrificed itself to be absorbed into her being, a joint wolf-human symbiont. This would now be her talisman and would walk the roads with her.

Now the Clan had four new warriors to fight the neighbouring Bear-Clan, Fox-Clan and Boar Clans. As well as _them_, the terrors that came in the Überwaldean night, seeking blood.

She smiled. It was good.

* * *

He had made no protest when the two dark-clad figures had come to him by night and invited him to dress and pack a case sufficient for his needs.

He had recognised them immediately: somebody's secret police. In his fifty-six years of life, he had been at the mercy of several kinds of secret police on two continents and they always thought and acted the same. Assured that he was not under arrest and could send on for the rest of his things later (the usual reassuring lie, as even secret policemen found their jobs more palatable if the arrestee was docile and came without a fight), he got into the coach with them and left Quirm.

He wasn't surprised to be taken into Ankh-Morpork and that the coach rolled smoothly into the Patrician's Palace. Wondering if he would see daylight again, but too old and tired to argue, he allowed his escort to lead him to an ornate ante-room where there was a clock with a most peculiar tick. He sat alone here for some time. Finally a door opened and a man of indeterminate age, with the alert look of a pacifist vegetarian hawk, came to see him.

"Professor van der Post? The Patrician will see you now."

* * *

Beads of sweat stood out on Johanna's brow as Matron Igorina expertly reset her broken forearm.

"You _were_ told it was broken? And _not_ to put any weight or stress on it? And then you have to go and pick up a bloody crossbow anyway, on your broken arm, and you aim and fire it. You must have known the weight and the recoil would reopen the break!Which part of "_this arm is broken, do not place any weight or stress on it_" did you fail to understand, exactly?"

"I got him, though. The leader of the leopards!"

"Well, you'll forever have his bite-mark on your arm to remember him by, although I've done all I can to fade the scars." Igorina said. "Which you really don't deserve. Now is it wasting my bloody time if I splint it and apply a supporting plaster? Oh, hi, Ruth!"

"How is she?" Ruth N'K'weze asked, through big sorrowful eyes, as Igorina deftly splinted and plastered. .

"Perfectly cepeble of enswering for herself, thenk you!" said Johanna.

"Are you capable of seeing the Patrician? Lord Downey wants us both up at the Palace."

Johanna grimaced.

"Let's get it over with."

"Lord Downey's very pleased with us both."

"I'm _so_ gled." Johanna said, swinging her legs off the examination couch and looking for her tunic.

* * *

The twenty-two year old Eng'Va went through a difficult birthing process, supported by the Wolf-Clan's wise women. As an initiate in the Wolf Society, she had mated with both men and male wolves depending on the shape she had been in when she came into heat. Her first litter two years before had been normal: two human babies and three wolf-cubs. But all _yennork, _locked in the body shape decided in the womb. After weaning, the human children were now being brought up communally by the Society as it was considered they would make the best candidates for membership. The three wolf-cubs were being brought up by a foster-mother in a friendly pack, and in the fullness of time would remember their human brothers and sisters, and return to offer themselves as sacrifices, to blend their essence with that of a human candidate.

Wo-Tan, the shaman, approved of this arrangement whereby Society members interbred only among themselves, and their wolf siblings were called back to them on the night of a Transformation Rite. It refined and purified the blood of the Wolves, and he fervently hoped would bring the Goal nearby.

He believed in the Goal, the necessary next step of the Society, that would render the Transformation Rite obsolete. Every new generation, more wolf than human, was a step closer to the Goal.

Unable to enter the birthing hut because of taboo, he paced outside, impatiently, waiting for word from the women.

And Eng'Va was delivered of six, three human and three wolf, the old woman reported, an auspicious number. She laid back in wolf form – it offered the maximum number of nipples - and felt them crawl to suckle at her. She twisted her head to look at her children and joy filled her.

_The old woman must have made a mistake. I see four wolf and two human._

* * *

The black man had been found a clean suit for his interview with Vetinari. He sat, head downcast, in a chair in the Oblong Office, as the Patrician asked questions. Also present were Vimes, Carrot, Angua, Lord Downey, the reverend Clement, both Ridcully brothers, and Johanna and Ruth.

"Mr N'Kima, you say that the Leopard Society is working towards some sort of _goal._ But you have not yet been clear on this point. Can you elaborate further?"

"I am uncertain." Anthony said, frankly. "All I know is that they are seeking a different way of making weres. There is a failure rate during training where people die or end up wishing they were dead. The Witch-Finders are looking to reduce this toll without diluting quality. That is all I know".

Vetinari nodded. "I understand you are not trying to be evasive. There are limits, after all, as to what the footsoldier knows of the intention of his generals".

Anthony smiled, uncertainly. "Indeed, sir. But I cannot see any other method of creating were-leopards, other than the one which has been employed for thousands upon thousands of years!"

Vetinari studied Angua, who was looking unhappy. "Then he returned to Anthony.

"You may be right. But progress always occurs, even in the slowest processes. Old techniques that served us well are superceded by new ones. Indeed, one ends up looking back at the old way, the one we thought could never be bettered, and wondering incredulously how we ever came to put up with something like that. Ah, Drumknott!"

"Professor van der Post, sir. Brought directly from Quirm, as you requested".

"Capital. Now let us suspend our informal question-and-answer session and make introductions, shall we? Professor, I am so glad you accepted my invitation to live and work in Ankh-Morpork. Let me first introduce your new employer, the Arch-Chancellor of Unseen University…."

Mustrum Ridcully bounded forward.

"Delighted to have you, Professor! Delighted! I'm always on the lookout for men of your calibre." He shook hands vigorously with the thin and tired looking academic, who blinked at the reception he was getting.

Van der Post looked bemused for a second or two.

"So… I'm not under arrest?" he said, slowly.

"Heavens above, no!" said the Patrician. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"The bleck unmarked coach… two enonymous and untalkative men in bleck picking me up at one in the morning… you know, all the usual signs that my ecademic work has aroused interest in high places.. Although one a.m. is usually _early_ for those sort of people. Three is a more usual time for them to be ective, or just before dawn for maximum disorientation velue".

He spoke precisely, with the remains of a _Vondalaans_ accent.

"You speak as a _connoisseur_ of these things." Vetinari said, with sympathy. "It is true that one of my motives was to secure you before the representatives of either Zululand or the Staadt looked your way, and collected you for a late-night academic discussion concerning certain issues. But you are certainly not _arrested_, oh no. Should you wish to take your chances with the College of Witch-Finders or the Bureau of State Security, and I know your ideas and revelations have aroused the interest of both, you are at liberty to leave my palace. No, I discussed this matter with the Arch-chancellor, who wishes you to be his Emeritus Chair of Howondalandian Studies. A suite of rooms at the University, which I believe is magically protected against mundane intrusion, as many meals a day as your rather undernourished frame can take, a modest stipend, and the liberty to pursue your further research using all the tools the University has at its disposal."

"Complete academic freedom, old man" said Ridcully. "Students too if you want 'em, as I believe you take the rather hair-shirt notion and minority position that part of the job of an academic involves teachin'."

The Professor bowed his head.

"I eccept. But I only ever did magic as a minor course of study at Witwatersrand. But you are a magical college?"

"Principally, old boy. In the main. And as long as you did _some_ magic of _some_ sort and you're in keepin' with the ethos. Hells Bells, the man you'll be workin' with in The Department of Egregious Geography hasn't got a magical bone in his body, but he fits in perfectly alright!"

"You will, of course, also be my occasional advisor on Howondalandian Affairs" Vetinari said. "At present I can consult sterling people like the Reverend N'Effabl here, or Miss Smith-Rhodes, and I know they will each give a honest opinion, but inevitably coloured by the fact one is a Zulu and the other a Boor. You have lived in both nations and I believe you are one of the very, very, few who fully understands both. Which is part of the reason why you have been imprisoned by the respective governments of both."

"Yes" said the professor, looking at Johanna. "I have nothing against the young lady, but one of her grandfather's last jobs before retiring as a judge was to send me to five years maximum security imprisonment on Gogga Island."

Johanna reddened, and bowed her head slightly. The old academic smiled.

"I believe you are from the black sheep of the Smith-Rhodes family herd? The branch of the family which is not _quite _considered highest society, because the sons elected to break with convention and marry Boor wives?"

_Eina! That hurt! But my family sent him to prison. He's entitled to a comeback. _

"My father chose not to go into politics," she said. "He opted to hev a quiet life meneging the femily ferm. You know? To keep out the lions and the elephants… _end the leopards…._ from his fermlend on those days when he wes not fighting Zulu ettecks from ecross the river."

"Oh, yes. The leopards. Thank you for jogging my memory." The Patrician said, genially.

"Professor, I wonder if you would like to come with me to view the items of evidence gathered in by the Watch over the last few nights?"

He led van der Post over to a side table on which were laid out three sets of Leopard Society garb, together with the dead N'Juri's personal fetish.

"There was a fourth, but, alas, it was too fire-damaged to retain." Vetinari apologised.

"These are the ritual costumes and decorations of Leopard Society members" the old academic breathed. "You even have a member of the Black Panthers! This is something I have never seen before! These things normally travel to the grave with Society members. How on Disc did you get hold of them?"

"Mr N'Kima here is part of the key." Vetinari said, indicating the young black prisoner. "And as for travelling to the grave, well, that was necessary in the case of two out of the four. The remainder, happily, surrendered in the face of greater force. While, unhappily, I may be forced to release one prisoner without charge as she has diplomatic immunity, this gentleman here is negotiating with me for political asylum. My eventual response hinges on many things, not the least his full and frank disclosure of what he knows. As one who has studied the Leopard Socieites in depth, professor, you may wish to take over the questioning? I am especially interested in the as yet undefined _**end goal**_ of the Society."

"Oh, I can tell you that, my Lord" said van der Post. "It is obvious when you compare it to what is known of the mythology, history, and known tribal myths of the Werewolves of Überwald. Why is that blonde Sergeant starting at me as intently as she is, by the way?"

* * *

_Can't the fool woman count? _Wo-Tan the wolf-shaman thought, angrily. _First she says three humans and three wolf-cubs. Then the mother says no, I count four wolf-cubs and two human gets. _

_And now I myself count…. _

The shaman Wo-Tan went ashen for a second, not believing the evidence of his eyes. Then he sank to his knees and screamed thanks to the Wolf-Goddess for at last hearing their prayers.

As he watched, a human baby gurgled slightly, flickered, passed through an indescribable alteration, and became a wolf-cub.

It had happened. Countless generations of the Ritual, countless generations of carefully arranged matings, countless generations of magically blending the essence of human and wolf, had so blended the wolf-stuff and the human-stuff that the tipping-point had arrived.

Werewolves were now being born, not made. The Wolf-Clan had reached the Goal. It was an epoch-making moment.

* * *

"And you found these final clues in Quirm, of all places?" Vetinari said, noting that Angua had gone white and her eyes had closed in something approximating anguish and disbelief.

"I spoke to outcast werewolves." van der Post said. "They told me fragments of legends that have survived. Other pieces of evidence were found in very early religious writings, the type all religions thrust to the most remote shelves or call _apocryphal _if they don't fit with current belief. Reformed vampires keep family records for longest, and some even recorded the habits and beliefs of what were then _prey_ species, eight or nine or ten thousand years ago. Lady Margolotta was very helpful when I explained to her what I was researching and she steered me in some interesting directions."

"I'm sure she was!" said Vetinari. "Proceed, Professor"

* * *

Eng'Va had four more litters of puppies. Some were _yennork,_ but were no less honoured for that. The majority were the new self-willed werewolf who could Change from birth, at will.

And where one mother went, others soon followed, as if the Wolf-Clan was being propelled onto its next evolutionary step. Birth werewolves, assisted by the same shrewd programme of breeding only with approved partners, walked side-by-side with those who continued to be Made in the Ritual.

And the Wolf-Clan went to war, its fighting wolves combining the tenacity of wolves with the ferocity and implacability of humans. The first neighbouring Clan to be exterminated (lest they too learn the Secret) was the Boar, lest they to achieved the Goal. The were-pigs were no match for the werewolves**(1)**, The Fox-clan was too small to be a match in war, although some, using foresight and cunning, escaped and made their way across the Continent, finally arriving in far Agatea, where they were reverenced as kindly but capricious nature spirits **_(2)_**.

Finally, the Bear-Clan, who were less in number and slower to reproduce than the Wolves, decided sadly they could no longer carry on living in their original woodlands. This clan, harried almost all the way by the Wolves, made it to safety in the frozen Hublands, but still mourn their lost forest in song and myth.

And after thirty generations, all werewolves were born rather than made, the ritual was no longer observed as it was now obsolete, and the secret of their origins became known to few. The Dark War happened, and the histories of what went before it were also obliterated, even in the tribal memory of most werewolves.

But it is possible, as werewolves are half-human, some of the terrible things they did to gain the unquestioned mastery of Überwald are remembered, in a distorted sort of way, by that most human of emotions: guilt. Even though the original reason for the guilt is long forgotten, and the possibility that there ever _were_ other weres in Überwald is indignantly denied.

* * *

Angua had had to be led out, crying helplessly, to be put to bed with a sedative. Long-closed doors had been opened and she had suddenly had ten thousand years of repressed racial memory dumped on her, all at once.

"She will be alright?" Johanna asked, anxiously.

"Sally and Cheery are with her" Carrot said. "They're both from Überwald, and I did wonder if Sally knew, well, more than she ever wanted to tell Angua, about the origins of werewolves. I hope they'll just have a Girls' Choir Practice – they'll invite you now, by the way. As you broke your arm as a Watchwoman, that stands for a lot."

"But I cen't sing, Ceptain!"

Carrot patted her plastered arm.

"After three or four cocktails in the Blue Cat Club, _every _Watchwoman can sing. Trust me."

Anthony N'Kima didn't break under van der Post's questioning: but all interrogations go best if steered by an interrogator who knows exactly what questions to ask.

At last, everything that could be extracted was written down, and van der Post nodded to the Patrician.

Vetinari's long meaningful silence called the room back to order, and he said:

"I now have to pronounce sentence, it seems. Anthony N'Kima, it seems to me that you were a lesser party in the recent outbreak of murders in this city. I am satisfied from all the evidence that while others delivered the killing blows, you held back and refrained from murder or participating on murder. To prevent the suspicion of the one called N'Juri falling on you, the most you did was the barest necessary minimum of, ah, post-mortem worrying of the corpses. You neither murdered nor ate human flesh following a murder. Similarly, you held back during the attack on the Guild of Assassins and the most you could reasonably be charged with is illegal entry and criminal damage. You did, however, illegally enter the Embassy, but were driven off before you had barely climbed over the fence from the Brindisian Embassy next door.

"Therefore it cannot be proven conclusively that there was an intent to assault any Embassy employee, and I am satisfied you fought and inflicted injury upon a guard-dog in self-defence. I therefore rule that your illegal entry onto the sovereign soil of Brindisi and Rimwards Howondaland is a matter for either the Brindisian or Rimwards Howondaland authorities to pursue, and is not within the jurisdiction of this court.

"I accept your request for political asylum subject to certain conditions, which are not open for negotiation…"

Later, after Anthony had been removed in conditions of security, he dealt with Blessing M'thuleze.

"You really are an extraordinarily lucky young woman." he remarked. "You clearly have diplomatic immunity and as such any criminal offences committed in this city will sadly have to remain on file. However, your accoutrements as a Leopard Society member will be confiscated by this court and you will return to your native country as a female human to remain as such for the rest of your life. I also advise you that. you have seventy-two hours to leave this City, and if you are found here after that time is elapsed your diplomatic status will be treated as having elapsed, so you will be arrested and tried. Leave _now,_ please you have bags to pack."

As she was dragged out, complaining she would not leave without her leopardskin, Vetinari remarked to Vimes

"Dissappointed, Sir Samuel? And I anticipate a gentle nudge from the Ambassador, telling me that the girl's leopardskin accessories are property of the Embassy, subject to diplomatic immunity, and cannot be impounded. Therfore I will have to surrender those also, and free a pitiless killing machine to kill again. I might be dismayed at this too".

Vetinari paused, and added:-

However, I should imagine her days are numbered anyway, once certain communications from Lord Downey arrive with the Guild office in Howondaland."

"Privileged information, my Lord" said Downey, with the hint of a smile.

"I see. Please escort Professor Van De Post out, temporarily, for the next trial, please?"

The third person tried was Esther Coetzee, the emigrant who had tried to chase Johanna. Vetinari smiled at her. There was no warmth in it.

"Conspiracy to murder." He said, almost conversationally. "You import a local Howondalandian argument to our streets. You participate in making a bad situation more difficult than it need be. You pursue a compatriot across this city with the intent of communicating her whereabouts to a pursuing murder gang.

"I am not having this in my city, Miss Coetzee. You are therefore exiled. It's up to you where you go. I will soon be having talks with the Zululand Ambassador. Perhaps he may be prevailed upon to recognise your loyal service to his country and reward it with a ticket back to Howondaland. I'm told the flowering acacia is quite magnificent at this time of year. But you have forty-eight hours, after which I will be activating a death sentence for espionage and conspiracy to murder. Off you go, you have a bag to pack!"

He waved her off.

"And now, the division of the spoils" he said, thoughtfully.

"I anticipate having to send one of these leopardskins back to the Embassy, but we have two remaining. Captain Carrot, you have a Watch Museum which might welcome an additional exhibit?"

"Thank you, sir. These will look good framed on the wall."

"Lord Downey, the Guild museum might welcome evidence of the first inhumation of were-creatures in the city, on both occasions by Miss Smith-Rhodes?"

"I would be delighted!" Downey said. "By the way, I never told Johanna the Dark Council opened contracts on these things. Fifty thousand dollars each, after Guild tax."

"A substantially wealthy young woman, and one with her own space on the wall to celebrate a truly difficult and innovative inhumation! I agree!" said Vetinari.

"Oh, and I support Sir Samuel in his assessment of the silver nitrate bombs. They go on the _banned in the city list_, Lord Downey, if you please."

"I will see to that, my Lord" said Downey.

"And dispose of this, would you?" He held out the fetish charm N'Juri had worn around his neck and which had preserved him from serious injury.

"_No, my lord!" _

"No?" Vetinari half-turned in surprise. It was the Reverend Clement and High Priest Ridcully who had spoken up.

"No, my lord." Clement said, firmly.

"We 're the men to dispose of that thing, m'Lord" said the High Priest. "For one thing, there's a God in that."

"And one that renders the wearer invulnerable." said Clement. "My Lord, imagine an assassin with this. Jonathon Teatime, perhaps, or a De'Ath. Or Doctor Cruces. One who goes to the bad. Hard enough to deal with without conferring near-immortality on them! "

Clement held out a small fat bottle with a wide neck.

"Drop it in here, my Lord. It will be safe, and we can take it to Small Gods and enshrine this God among thousands of his fellows. He will get a share of belief there and live and be happy."

Vetinari dropped the leather pouch in the bottle. Clement spoke rapidly into the neck in Zulu, and waited for a reply.

"The God who animates this thing is called _M'Uniti._" He said. "He consents to going to the Temple." He stoppered the bottle.

"And you will lose that thing among thousands of others?" Vetinari said. "I want no accidents!"

"Needle in a haystack job, my Lord!" said Ridcully, cheerfully.

"And, My Lord? Those leopardskin jockstraps all carry a charge. I counsel soaking them all in salty water for a day or so. That kills the indwelling spirit and all you'll have after that is just, well, animal skin. And the lad Anthony has sworn he'll never take on leopard form again."

Vetinari smiled.

"And then they can safely become museum exhibits. And my, a certain most disagreeable young lady is in for something of a surprise when she gets her leopardskins back…"

* * *

_**In The Howondalandian Jungle, the present…**_

Unable to enter the birthing hut because of taboo, he paced outside, impatiently, waiting for word from the women.

_A shame about the operation on Ankh-Morpork, he thought. But now we know better what we fight, we will win next time. They are almost all dead. Their names are honoured. _

And the woman was delivered of six, three human and three leopard, the old woman reported, an auspicious number. She laid back in cat form – it offered the maximum number of nipples - and felt them crawl to suckle at her. She twisted her head to look at her children and joy filled her.

_The old woman must have made a mistake. I see four leopard-cubs and two human._

_Can't the fool woman count? _N 'Describabl the Witch-Finder thought, angrily. _First she says three humans and three leopard-cubs. Then the mother says no, I count four leopard-cubs and two human gets. _

_And now I myself count…. _

The Witch-Finder N 'Describabl went ashen for a second, not believing the evidence of his eyes. Then he sank to his knees and screamed thanks to Great Unkolunkulu for at last hearing their prayers.

As he watched, a human baby gurgled slightly, flickered, passed through an indescribable alteration, and became a leopard-cub.

It had happened. Countless generations of the Ritual, countless generations of carefully arranged matings, countless generations of magically blending the essence of human and leopard, had so blended the leopard-stuff and the human-stuff that the tipping-point had arrived.

Were-leopards were now being born, not made. The Society had reached the Goal. It was an epoch-making moment.

* * *

**(1)** save for three brothers who locked themselves away against a wind called up by a Wolf-shaman. One took refuge in a wattle-and-daub hut made of mere sticks. The wind blew it away and the boar within was slain and eaten. One took refuge in the Chief's long-sty, a more robust wooden building. The wind tore it down and he too became pork and bacon for the Wolves. The third took shelter in a stone builsing that was proof against the wind. But the Wolves piled up the wood from the two other pigs' houses around the stone house and lit it, announcing they were having a barbecue. And thus passed the Were-Boar race, in a story so enduring it is told in the Disc today as one of those repositories of truth called "nursery rhymes".

**(2) **Japan has myths and legends of _**fox-kami**_, native spirits which to all purposes and intents are were-foxes who may become hman at will.


	14. Postscripts

_**Whys and Weres 14**_

_Absolutely the last bit that needs to be said..._

**Post-Scripts**

Leaving the conference at the Palace, Johanna was stopped by Vimes. He gave her a long cool look.

"So bloody Downey's making you a hundred grand better off as a result of the night's work?" he demanded.

Johanna shrugged.

"If I'd got all four, it would heve been two hundred thousand." she said, evenly.

"Still better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, though. Which leads me to my point. Special Detective-Constable Smith-Rhodes, you were there last night as one of my _Watchwomen_, not as a bloody Assassin. I happen to have strict rules concerning members of the Watch receiving financial inducements from bodies or agencies outside the Watch for merely doing their duty. "

"Oh, dear. I really hope this is not going to be a clesh of interests?"

"I can be fair. You're a Special, after all, and Assassin is your day job. Downey's already had his Guild Tax off the fee, hasn't he?"

"The usual fifty per cent, yes."

"Right." Said Vimes. "I'm now suggesting to you that out of that fee, you voluntarily and of your own free will pay a Watch Widows and Orphans tax of, ooh, twenty percent. Which is a _steal_ compared to Downey taking half. Then the rest is yours as you've bloody well earned it. Same principle applies to any Watchman in a position to claim reward money put up by outsiders. A percentage to Widows and Orphans, they keep the balance."

"Twenty thousand." Johanna said.

"On my desk by tomorrow, miss Smith-Rhodes. And bloody well done!" He squeezed her undamaged hand in token of thanks, saluted, turned and left without a backward glance.

Johanna sighed, philosophically. _Not so easy come, easy go_….

Ruth joined her.

"You've just been shaken down, haven't you?"

"Thet's mr Vimes for you!" she said, in grudging admiration.

"By the way, Ruth, helf the fee for N'Juri is yours. If you hedn't done whet you did, it would hev been a lot _messier_!"

"A senior Assassin who doesn't try to bilk her assistant!" Ruth said, with something of the old spark. "A Boor baas-lady who doesn't try to underpay the bleck hired hend! What's the next rare thing we shall see?"

"Don't push it, _skabenga_!" Johanna cautioned, but she was laughing.

Ruth's face fell.

"My father is going to go spare!" she said. "He is going to go _{{person who balances the books and dispenses monies}}. _What do I tell him, Johanna?"

* * *

The following morning was bright and clear and sunny. The Patrician sipped his iced tea reflectively as Ambassador Canaan N'Vectif outlined his plans for rebuilding the destroyed wing of the Kwa'Zulu Embassy.

"I'm not sure what to do with the wing when it is rebuilt." he said, reflectively. "Prior to the recent incident, the upstairs floor housed the Witch-Finders and their clerical secretariat. Downstairs, certain recent occupants used the cellar beneath as a, er, _den_."

"This is a capital drink for a sunny day, Ambassador!" Vetinari said, sipping. "As always, your Embassy is most hospitable."

Vetinari's coach had turned up unannounced; and after minimal ceremony, had been allowed to enter for what the press release would later term "an informal discussion" on local and world events.

"My dear sir!" Vetinari added, as if a hidden message had belatedly struck him.

"You will still need a contingent of Witch-Finders here. I can hardly deny you, when virtually every Embassy in this City appears to have its contingent of accredited magic-users. The Paramount King might summon my man at his Royal Kraal to ask why we single his country out for such an insult, by denying you your native magicians."

The Ambassador looked surprised, as if this was the answer he least expected to hear.

"No, the Genuans have their voudou practitioners. Fourecks sends Wizards from Bugarup University supported by native aboriginal boneshakers. Brindisi has its resident _vecchia_. And I understand the Agatean Embassy will soon be graced by a group of _fox-kami_. _That_ may well prove to be of quiet interest."

Vetinari put down his drink and steepled his fingers on the table-top.

"No, I consider that after recent events, the new diplomatically accredited Witch-Finders will have learnt a lesson from the sad fate of their, ah, _predecessors_, and will be more circumspect in their actions. Magical accidents tend to happen in this city, and I commiserate with your nation on its sad loss. However, I am prepared to extend diplomatic accreditation to no more than _two_, and your government is to be made aware that at all times they will be under your direct management and may not act as an independent group by-passing normal diplomatic channels.

"And I recently returned to you Anthony N'Kima and Blessing M'Utheleze , did I not? And even as we speak, the young lady is at the docks, preparing to board a long slow boat home. As you know, I found no evidence to link the young man to recent crimes in this city, and as far as I am concerned, he is free to continue his legitimate diplomatic duties here."

Their eyes met. Both men knew it. Anthony had been _turned_, and would now be Vetinari's ears, eyes, and nose in the Kwa'Zulu Embassy.

_Better the spy you know… _thought the Ambassador.

_The Ambassador will now use N'Kima as a channel to reveal to me only what he thinks I should know. Which is capital, as the omissions in N'Kima's reports will tell me what I _need_ to know. And being useful to us both, he should be relatively free from harm. _

"The recent intrusion at the Rimwards Howondaland Embassy, which alas we never got to the bottom of, displays that there is an unquestionable need for Embassies to have their own guards in case of intrusion by the maliciously-minded. I am therefore happy for you to have a resident contingent of Leopard Society members in residence subject to these conditions, which are not negotiable.

"One. They are here for defence only, and in that role have a legitimate right to self-defence.

"Two. I am conceding the Tump to you as an area where they may run at night in leopard form when they require exercise. They may hunt rabbits and rodents as they please. They may also run as leopards outside the city limits and outside my jurisdiction. At all other times and places within the city, they go in human form only. Within the Embassy grounds, your law applies and it may well deter intruders to know they patrol your grounds at night.

"Three. Anthony N'Kima will be their leader and no other.

"Four. There will be no slaying of humans of any race or nationality, except that it may occur in legitimate self-defence.

"Five. There will under no circumstances be any Black Panthers among their number.

And six: there will be _no_ overt hostility with any other form of were-creature resident in this City. I will advise our resident werewolf population of this clause and enforce it.

"You will receive written copies of this agreement shortly."

"I am agreeable, my lord." Ambassador N'Vectif said, with audible relief.

"Capital!" said Vetinari, cheerfully. "_Kiff,_ even. You know, the slang of the Rimwards Howondalandians is as extensive and nearly as colourful as that of the Fourecksian. Partly Morporkian, partly Kerrigian, and partly drawn from the native tribal languages."

"_Skabenga_ is a good illustration, my Lord. I have wondered how many Boors realise that is the Zulu word for "miscreant", "naughty person" or "criminal", when they use it almost as an endearment."

"And of course, one of the Embassy guard dogs got to the bottom of the intruder, by all accounts. It took a good hup out of his guava, apparently!"

The two men laughed together, understanding each other.

"And now the other thing" Vetinari said. "Having given Anthony N'Kimba his leopardskin back, with the promise he use it only for socially beneficient reasons, I am embarrassed in that I appear to have simultaneously promised it as trophy to the Assassins' Guild. I was wondering, have you a spare we could purchase?"

The ambassador called over a servant and issued orders.

"As good as done, my lord!"

"Capital. And the last thing we need do to forestall an international incident. We do rather need a ruling on Miss Ruth N'Kweze's marital status. It does rather seem as if she went through the form of marriage with Emmanuel N'juri, seconds before he was killed. Her father, the Paramount King, will be enraged his daughter gave herself in marriage to not only a commoner, but a murderous criminal. And I fear he will blame me."

"It is true she used the words that bind a man and woman in marriage, yes. But the marriage was not consummated."

"But that does not necessarily annul it. Just before the Battle of Isandlhwana, the then Paramount Chief attended a mass marriage of eight hundred men of his favoured regiment. During the ceremony, he heard the Ankh-Morporkian Army under the command of Lords Rust and Eorle had crossed the Blood River into Kwa'Zululand.

"He gave his men no chance to say farewell to their new wives, ended the wedding feast, and sent them straight into battle. With a result we all remember to this day."

"Yes, Lord Vetinari. Why your nation persists in allowing Rusts to command its army is a mystery to the rest of us."

There was a silence. After a while, Vetinari continued.

"And even though those marriages were not consummated and many of that day's new wives went into widowhood, it was ruled that they were widows, nonetheless."

"As is the Princess Ruth, I believe. At least she inherits N'Juri's worldly estate."

"She has already bequeathed his panther skins to a city museum, that much I do know."

The Ambassador nodded.

"I will recommend that the Paramount refers the matter to the College of Jujumen and Wise Elders. They will, I think, make the ruling."

"Capital! I am looking forward to advising Lord Downey that the Guild of Assassins now has its second, so to speak, Black Widow!"

A servant returned, bowed, and handed Vetinari a parcel. It contained a leopardskin loincloth, four bracelets and a headband of the same material.

"Virtually indistinguishable from the real thing," said the Ambassador, "and museum-quality, I think".

"You are too kind!"

"Think nothing of it, Havelock!"

_Vetinari has helped me keep my face and enabled me to present what they will interpret as a partial victory. I owe him. _

Vetinari smiled. With three or more groups of were-animals in the city, they would be too busy watching and mistrusting each other for any one on its own to be powerful enough to pose a real threat. If van der Post's theories were correct, the weres had originally evolved as a human response to the threat posed by vampires. This development would worry the vampire community too and prevent it from getting too powerful, which was also no bad thing.

* * *

Johanna and Ruth took the dogs for a walk on the Tump. It was safe to let them off the lead to try and chase rabbits. Although the lupine population of the mound had evolved, in a city where they were seen as free calories, to avoid far more skilled poacher, and were duly contemptuous of two lolloping great near-puppies ineffectually trying to chase them to ground.

As Kafee and Crème ran and chased, Johanna nursed her broken arm, which didn't so much hurt as itch abominably. Like thousands of plaster-cast wearers before her, she was discovering how impossible it is to get to the source of the itch for a satisfying scratch, and was moodily putting up with it.

"So ere you a widow or eren't you?"

"I don't know. Nobody does. But I just wish I could have him back, but changed and different."

Johanna wished she knew what to say. She hoped feelings like this faded with time and distance. She wondered if in any circumstances she might ever have to inhume Ponder. Her soul revolted from the prospect, but contemplating it gave her insights into how devastated Ruth must be feeling.

_You're an Assassin. You fall for a guy. Ag, he turns out to be a bad guy and wholly unsuitable. But you've still fallen for him. Then you have to inhume him. But what matters is that at some level, she planned exactly how she was going to do it then made herself do it. Ag, Ruth is an Assassin. _

The two women sat and watched the rabbits contemptuously evade the dogs. _Here and now, it's a nice life. And we're young, female, and alive. _

* * *

Angua von Überwald sat up in bed and read the two letters. The shorter one was from Mr Vimes.

_I really didn't want to do this to you while you're off sick, but Vetinari is insisting you take on a job for the City. He says you are the best qualified person. Read it and see what you thnink._

Vetinari's note was terse.

_Commander Vimes._

_With the recent influx of new were-species in this city, I consider it imperative that the Cable Street Particulars maintain a watching brief on the newcomers as they arrive. This can be done under the standard intelligence headings of type, description, location, habits, known criminal tendencies, and so on. _

_What is known about the fox-kami, or were-foxes, soon to arrive at the Agatean Embassy, is appended. _

_We also believe the Hubland Confederation has a military attaché called Beorn Beornsson, who is an example of the rare were-bear (description and iconograph attached.) _

_The Fourecksian High Commission has also been dropping hints lately concerning the existence of weres among the aboriginal population, species yet to be ascertained. _

_And of course there will be were-leopards still at the Kwa'Zulu Embassy, although their claws have been pulled somewhat in recent weeks. _

_I consider Sergeant Angua ideal to be seconded to the CSP for perhaps one day a week to undertake this work, as it may help her come to terms with the new status of werewolves in the world…_

_Bloody, bloody, Vetinari! _she thought, laid back, and fumed.

Although the idea of were-foxes intrigued her…she wondered what form they would take.

_Maybe we didn't slaughter them all…._

The thought was something of a relief.


End file.
